Joshua  Davidson  is  a  provincial  carpenter, 
^ho,  when  a  lad,  modeled  his  life  on  that  of 
Christ's.   Literally  interpreting  his  Prototype's 
words  and  acts,  he  is  successively  bitten  by  a 
snake  and  broke  one  of  his  legs  by  jumping 
from  a   small    precipice.     Going   to    London 
with  a  friend,  he  lived  his  religious,  moral,  and 
political    opinions, — with  caustic  effect  upon 
fashionable    professors   of  religion,    salvation 
to  some  fallen,  and  little  comfort  to  himself 
He  joined  the  Communists  in  Paris,  and  there 
was    killed   by  his    political    foes.     We  may 
safely  say  that  no  such  person  as  Joshua  Da- 
vidson   ever    lived, — no    more    did    "  Ginx's 
Baby," — and  that  the  author  of  "The  Girl  of 
the  Period"  simply  adopts   this   biographical 
form  to  ventilate  her  views  of  politics,  morality, 
and  the  Christian  world.     The  book  is  pub- 
lished anonymously  in  England,  and  a  review 
in  the  London  "Athenaeum"  concludes  thus : 
"  In  saying  this  we  humor  the  author  by  ac- 
cepting him  as  the  workman  he  pretends  to 
be;  but  it  is  clear  from  the  style  that,  although 
not    ignorant    of    proletarian    opinion,    he    is 
nothing  of  the  kind,  unless,  indeed,  it  be — a 
skilled  workman  in  the  field  of  literature." 


on 


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in  2009  with  funding  from 
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http://www.archive.org/details/truehistoryofjosOOOIint 


THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 
JOSHUA   DAVIDSON 


THE  TRUE  HISTORY 


OF 


Joshua  Davidson, 


COMMUNIST. 


I'HILADELPHIA: 

J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT    <fc    CO. 

18  73. 


PREFACE. 

So  many  false  reports  have  got  about 
concerning  the  life  and  opinions  of  Joshua 
Davidson,  the  Cornish  carpenter,  that  I  feel 
it  to  be  a  duty  I  owe  his  memory  to  tell 
the  truth  as  I  know  it ;  leaving  the  world 
to  judge  between  what  I,  his  nearest  friend, 
knew  of  him,  and  what  gossips  and  his 
enemies  have  falsely  said.  As  I  am  neither 
a  gentleman  nor  a  scholar  I  have  not  pre- 
tended to  any  graces  of  style  ;  and  I  have 
not  tried  to  make  an  amusing  story.  My 
little  book  is  more  a  record  of  what  Joshua 
said  and  thought  than  of  what  happened  to 
him  through  others  :  that  is,  there  is  next  to 


viii  PREFACE. 

no  dramatic  interest  in  it.  Neither  do  I 
care  to  give  my  name.  Those  who  know 
'  Joshua  will  know  who  I  am  well  enough ; 
and  if  I  have  said  anything  wrong  they  can 
come  forward  and  challenge  me.  And  for 
the  rest  it  does  not  signify.  I  have  written 
merely  for  truth's  sake  and  love's ;  and  with 
this  I  leave  my  dear  friend's  memory  to  the 
verdict  of  all  honest  hearts. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Joshua  Davidson  was  tlie  only  son  of  a 
village  carpenter,. born  in  the  small  hamlet 
of  Trevalga  on  the  North  Cornwall  coast,  in 
the  year  1835.  His  parents  were  poor  but 
worthy  people,  who  kept  themselves  very 
much  together  and  had  but  little  to  do  with 
the  neighbours.  Folks  blamed  this  for  pride, 
and  said  they  held  themselj^es  high  because 
they  were  the  decayed  branches  of  an 
ancient  family  —  some  said  dating  from 
King  Arthur's  self.     Of  course  this  was  only 


2  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

an  "  Arthurian  legend,"  if  I  may  call  it  so, 
that  could  not  be  verified ;  for  naturally 
down  about  Tintagel  everything  has  to  do 
with  King  Arthur  —  even  the  choughs. 
Joshua  sometimes  spoke  of  it,  but  not  from 
pride  ;  there  never  was  a  man  freer  from 
that  failing  than  he ;  rather  from  the  belief 
he  had  in  what  a  learned  man  would  call 
hereditary  transmission,  but  as  we  say,  just 
"  in  the  blood,''  and  a  kind  of  idea  that 
dawned  on  him,  quite  of  late  years,  that 
there  would  be  a  revival  of  national  glories, 
national  names  and  leaders,  under  new 
aspects  but  from  the  ancient  sources.  And 
if  so,  might  he  not  count  for  something, 
direct  descendant  as  he  believed  he  was  of 
the  hero  whose  Castle  had  been  one  of  his 
earliest  playgrounds,  and  on  whose  Quoit  he 
had  spent  many  an  hour  of  way-side  dream- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  3 

ing  ?  It  was  a  fancy  ;  a  harmless  one  ;  so 
let  it  pass  for  just  as  much  as  it  was 
worth. 

There  was  nothing  very  remarkable  about 
Joshua's  childhood.  He  was  always  a  quiet, 
thoughtful  boy,  and  from  his  earliest  years 
noticeably  pious.  His  parents  came  of  the 
Friends'  stock;  not  of  a  strict  kind  them- 
selves, for  they  joined  in  the  Church  services  ; 
but  the  fact  is  just  an  indication  of  the  kind 
of  influences  which  helped  to  mould  him  in 
early  youth.  He  had  a  habit  of  asking  why, 
and  of  reasoning  out  a  principle,  from  quite  a 
little  lad  ;  which  displeased  people  ;  so  that 
he  did  not  get  all  the  credit  from  the  school- 
master and  the  clergyman  to  which  his  dili- 
gence and  good  conduct  entitled  him.  They 
thought  him  troublesome,  and  some  said  he 
was  self-conceited ;  which  he  never  was ;  but 

B  2 


4  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

the   more  lie  was   in   earnest  the  more  he 
offended  them. 

He  was  never  well  looked  on  by  the 
Vicar  since  a  famous  scene  that  took  place 
in  the  church  one  Sunday  after  afternoon 
catechism.  He  was  then  about  fourteen 
years  of  age,  and  I  have  heard  say  he  Avas 
a  beautiful  boy,  Avith  a  face  almost  like  a 
young  woman's  for  purity  and  spirituality. 
He  was  so  beautiful  that  some  ladies  and 
gentlemen  staying  at  the  Vicarage  noticed 
him  during  church  time,  and  said  he  looked 
like  a  boy-saint.  But  he  knew  nothing  about 
himself  I  question  if  he  knew  whether  his 
hair  was  black  like  mine,  or,  as  it  was,  a 
bright  brown  like  ripe  nuts  in  the  sunshine. 
After  catechism  was  over  he  stood  out  before 
the  rest,  just  in  his  rough  country  clothes  as 
he  was,  and   said  very  respectfully  to   the 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  5 

Vicar,  Mr.  Grand  : *  "If  you  please  sii%  I 
would  like  to  ask  you  a  few  questions/' 

"Certainly,  my  lad,  wliat  have  you  to 
say  ? "  said  Mr.  Grand  rather  shortly.  He 
did  not  seem  over  well  pleased  at  the  boy  s 
addressing  him ;  but  he  could  not  well 
refuse  to  hear  him  because  of  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen  with  him,  and  especially  ]\Ir. 
Freeman,  a  very  good  old  man  who  thought 
well  of  everybody,  and  let  everybody  do 
pretty  much  as  they  liked. 

"  If  we  say,  sir,  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
God/'  said  Joshua,  ''  surely  all  that  He  said 
and  did  must  be  the  real  right  ?  There 
cannot  be  a  better  way  than  His  ?" 

*  I  do  not  mind  giving  tliis  name  of  the  clergyman, 
because  it  was  not  his  own ;  only  one  that  we  lads  gave 
him  behind  backs,  as  it  were ;  else  I  do  not  intend  to 
give  the  names  of  any  living  actors  in  this  history.  The 
scene  I  am  now  describing  was  told  me  by  Joshua's 
mother,  who  wrote  it  down  as  soon  as  she  got  home. 


6  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

"Surely  not,  my  lad/'  Mr.  Grand  made 
answer ;  "  what  else  have  you  been  taught 
all  your  life  %  what  else  have  you  been  say- 
ing in  your  catechism  just  now  V 

"And  His  apostles  and  disciples,  they 
showed  the  way  too  \  "  said  Joshua. 

"  And  they  showed  the  way  too,  as  you 
say ;  and  if  you  come  up  to  half  they  taught 
you'll  do  well,  Joshua." 

The  Vicar  laughed  a  little  laugh  as  he 
said  this ;  but  it  was  a  laugh,  Joshua's 
mother  said,  that  seemed  to  mean  the  same 
thing  as  a  "  scat " — our  Cornish  word  for 
a  blow — only  the  boy  didn't  seem  to  see  it. 

"  Yes ;  but,  sir,  it  is  not  of  myself  I  am 
thinking,  it  is  of  the  world,"  said  Joshua. 
"  If  we  are  Christians,  why  don't  we  live  as 
Christians  ? " 

"  Ah  indeed  !  why  don't  we  ! "    said  Mr. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  7 

Grand.  ''  Because  of  the  wickedness  of  the 
human  heart ;  because  of  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil  1 '' 

"■  Then,  sir,  if  you  feel  this,  why  don't 
you  and  all  the  clergy  live  like  the  apostles, 
and  give  what  you  have  to  the  poor  V  cried 
Joshua,  clasping  his  hands  and  making  a 
step  forward,  the  tears  in  his  eyes.  ''  Why, 
when  you  read  that  verse,  *  Whoso  hath 
this  world's  good,  and  seeth  his  brother  have 
need,  and  shutteth  up  his  compassion  from 
him,  how  dwelleth  the  love  of  God  in  him?' 
do  you  live  in  a  fine  house,  and  have  grand 
dinners,  and  let  Peggy  Bray  nearly  starve 
in  that  old  mud  hut  of  hers,  and  widow 
Tregellis  there,  with  her  six  children,  and  no 
fire  or  clothing  for  them  ?  I  can't  make  it 
out,  sir !  Christ  was  God  ;  and  we  are 
Christians ;  yet  we  won't  do  as  He  ordered. 


8  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

thoiigli  you  tell  us  it  is  a  sin  that  can  never 
be  forgiven  if  we  dispute  what  the  Bible 
says." 

"  And  so  it  is/'  said  Mr.  Grand  sternly. 
"  Who  has  been  putting  these  bad  thoughts 
into  your  head  \ " 

"  No  one,  sir.  I  have  been  thinking  for 
myself.  Michael,  out  by  Lion's  Den,  is 
called  an  infidel ;  he  calls  himself  one  ;  and 
you  preached  last  Sunday  that  no  infidel 
can  be  saved ;  but  Michael  helped  Peggy 
and  her  base  child  when  the  Orphan  Fund 
people  took  away  her  pension,  because,  as 
you  yom-self  told  her,  she  was  a  bad  woman, 
and  it  was  encouraging  wickedness  ;  and  he 
worked  early  and  late  for  widow  Tregellis 
and  her  children,  and  shared  with  them  all 
he  had,  going  short  for  them  many  a  time. 
And  I  can't  help  thinking,  sir,  that  Christ, 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  9 

wlio  forgave  all  manner  of  sinners,  would 
have  lielpecl  Peggy  with  her  base  child, 
and  that  Michael,  being  an  infidel  and  such 
a  good  man,  is  something  like  that  second 
son  in  the  Parable  who  said  he  would  not 
do  his  Lord's  will  when  he  was  ordered,  but 
who  went  all  the  same " 

"  And  that  your  Yicar  is  like  the  first  ? " 
interrupted  Mr.  Grand  angrily. 

''  A\'ell,  yes,  sir,  if  you  please,"  said  Joshua 
quite  modestly  but  very  fervently. 

There  was  a  great  stir  among  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen  when  Joshua  said  this ;  and 
some  laughed  a  little,  under  their  breath 
because  it  was  in  church,  and  others  lifted  up 
their  eyebrows,  and  said,  "  What  an  extra- 
ordinary boy  !  "  and  whispered  together  ; 
but  Mr.  Grand  was  very  angry,  and  said  in 
a  severe  tone — 


lo  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

"These  tliing^s  are  beyond  the  knowledofe 
of  an  ignorant  lad  like  you,  Joshua ;  and  I 
advise  you,  before  you  turn  questioner  and 
reformer,  to  learn  a  little  humility  and 
respect  for  your  betters.  I  consider  you 
have  done  a  very  impertinent  thing  to-day, 
and  I  shall  mark  you  for  it !" 

"  I  did  not  mean  to  be  impertinent,  sir," 
said  Joshua  eagerly ;  "I  want  only  to 
know  the  right  of  things  from  you,  and  to 
do  as  God  has  commanded,  and  Christ  has 
shown  us  the  way.  And  as  you  are  our 
clergyman,  and  this  is  the  House  of  God,  I 
thought  it  the  best  plan  to  ask.  I  want 
only  to  know  the  truth  ;  and  I  cannot  make 
it  out ! " 

"  Hold  your  tongue,  sir  !  '*  said  ]\Ir. 
Grand?  "  God  has  commanded  you  to  obey 
your  pastors  and  masters  and  all  that  are  in 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  ii 

authority  over  you ;  so  let  us  have  no  more 
of  this  folly.  Believe  as  you  are  taught, 
and  do  as  you  are  told,  and  don't  set  your- 
self up  as  an  independent  thinker  in  matters 
you  understand  no  more  than  the  ass  you 
drive.  Go  back  to  your  place,  sir,  and 
another  time  think  twice  before  you  speak 
to  your  superiors." 

"  I  meant  no  harm.  I  meant  only  the 
truth  and  to  hear  the  things  of  God,"  re- 
peated Joshua  sadly,  as  he  took  his  seat 
among  his  companions ;  who  tittered. 

When  they  all  went  out  of  church  Mr. 
Grand  was  heard  to  say  to  Mr.  Freeman  : 
"  You  will  see,  Freeman,  that  boy  will  go  to 
the  bad  ;  he  will  turn  out  a  pestilent  fellow, 
a  freethinker  and  a  democrat.  Oh,  I  know 
the  breed,  with  their  cant  about  truth  and  the 
right!     He  richly  deserved  a  flogging  to-day 


12  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

if  ever  boy  did ;  to  dare  to  take  rae  to  task 
in  my  own  cliurcli  1 " 

But  Mr.  Freeman  said  gently ;  "  I  don't 
think  lie  meant  it  for  insolence.  I  think  the 
lad  was  in  earnest,  though  of  course  he 
should  not  have  spoken  as  he  did.'' 

*'  Earnest  or  not,  he  must  be  taught  better 
manners  for  the  future,"  said  Mr.  Grand. 

And  so  it  was  that  Joshua  was  not  well 
looked  on  by  the  clergyman,  who  was  his 
enemy,  as  one  may  say,  ever  after. 

All  this  made  a  great  talk  at  the  time, 
and  there  are  many  who  remember  the  whole 
thing  at  this  present  day;  as  any  one  would 
find  if  they  were  to  ask  down  at  Trevalga ; 
but  all  that  Joshua  was  ever  heard  to  say  of 
it  was  :  "  I  thought  only  of  what  was  right 
in  the  sight  of  God ;  I  never  thought  of  man 
at  all." 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  13 

He  did  not  however,  repeat  the  experi- 
ment of  asking  inconvenient  questions  of  his 
social  superiors  in  public ;  but  it  was  noticed 
that  after  this  he  became  more  and  more 
thoughtful,  and  more  and  more  under  the 
mfluence  of  a  higher  principle  than  lads  of 
his  age  are  usually  troubled  with.  And 
though  ahvays  tender  to  his  parents  and  re- 
spectful to  the  schoolmaster  and  minister, 
and  the  like  of  that,  yet  he  was  less  guided 
by  what  might  be  called  expediency  in  his 
conduct,  and  more  than  ever  a  stickler  for 
the  uncompromising  truth,  and  the  life  as 
lived  by  Jesus  Christ.  He  was  not  uncom- 
fortable to  live  with,  his  mother  said ;  quite 
the  contrary ;  no  one  ever  saw  him  out  of 
temper,  and  no  one  ever  knew  him  do  a 
bad  thing  ;  but  he  somehow  forced  his 
parents  to  be   always  up  to  the  mark,  and 


14  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

even  tlie  neighbours  were  ashamed  to  talk 
loosely  or  say  what  they  shouldn't  before  a 
lad  whose  whole  thought,  whose  sole  en- 
deavour was,  "  how  to  realise  Christ.'* 

"  Mother,"  he  once  said,  as  he  and  Mrs. 
Davidson  stood  by  the  cottage  door  together, 
"  I  mean  when  I  grow  up  to  live  as  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  lived  when  He  was  on  the  earth. 
For  though  he  is  God  in  Heaven  he  was  only 
man  here ;  and  what  He  did  we  too  can  do 
with  His  help  and  the  Holy  Spirit's." 

*'  He  is  our  example,  lad,"  said  his  mother 
reverently.  "  But  I  doubt  lest  you  fall  by 
over  boldness." 

*'  Then,  if  imitation  is  over  bold.  His  life 
was  a  delusion,  and  He  is  not  our  example  at 
all,"  said  Joshua.  "  AVhich  is  a  saying  ot 
the  devil." 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  15 


CHAPTER  11. 


Joshua  did  not  leave  home  early.  He 
wrought  at  his  father's  bench  and  was  con- 
tent to  bide  with  his  people.  But  his  spirit 
was  not  dead  if  his  life  was  uneventful.  He 
gathered  about  him  a  few  youths  of  his  own 
age,  and  held  with  them  prayer  meetings 
and  Bible  readings,  either  at  home  in  his 
fathers  house,  or  in  the  fields  when  the 
throng  was  too  great  for  the  cottage.  It 
gave  one  a  feeling  as  of  old  primitive  times 
to  be  sitting  there  under  the  clear  sky  of  a 
summer's  evening,  with  the  larks  singing 
over  head,  and  the   swallows   and  sea  birds 


i6  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

flasliino;  tliroug;li  tlie  air,  the  voice  of  tlie 
\Yaves  as  tliey  beat  up  against  Long  Island 
subdued  to  a  tender  murmur  that  seemed  to 
have  a  mystery  somehow  in  it,  and  the 
young  carpenter  reading  to  us  of  Christ,  and 
praying  for  the  power  to  be  like  unto  Him  in 
life  and  heart ;  praying  with  an  earnestness, 
a  realization,  a  very  passion  of  entreaty — 
nay,  I  have  never  heard  or  seen  aught  like  it 
since,  in  church  or  chapel  either ! 

And  then  he  liimself  was  so  unlike  other 
boys.  He  was  so  upright,  so  steadfast !  No 
one  ever  knew  Joshua  tell  the  shadow  of  a 
lie,  or  go  back  from  his  word,  or  play  at 
pretence.  And  he  had  such  an  odd  way  of 
coming  right  home  to  us.  He  seemed  to 
have  felt  all  that  we  felt,  and  to  have 
thouo;ht  all  our  thouo^hts.  Youno;  as  he  was, 
he  was  our  leader  even  then.     We  all  looked 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  17 

for  ^rreat  tbing-s  from  liim.  I  should  be 
laughed  at  if  I  said  how  high  our  expecta- 
tions reached. 

The  youths  that  Joshua  got  together  as 
his  friends  were  as  well-conditioned  a  set  of 
lads  as  you  would  wish  to  see  ;  sober,  indus- 
trious, chaste.  They  were  never  in  any 
trouble,  and  no  one  could  say  they  had  ever 
heard  one  of  them  give  back  a  bad  word, 
whatever  the  provocation,  or  say  a  loose 
one  ;  but  the  clergy  of  their  several  parishes 
scouted  them,  and  stood  at  no  evil  to  say  of 
them.  For  they  were  not  church-goers  ;  and 
that  is  always  an  offence  to  the  clergy  of 
country  parishes,  who  treat  even  the  best  of 
the  Dissenters  as  little  better  than  rogues, 
taking  it  partly  as  a  personal  affront  and 
partly  as  a  moral  sin  if  their  parishioners 
find  greater  comfort  for  their  poor  souls  else- 


i8  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

where  than  under  them.  However,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  the  lads  were  of  no  denomi- 
nation ;  and  though  they  prayed  much  and 
often,  it  was  neither  at  church  nor  chapel;  it 
was  at  their  own  houses  or  in  the  fields. 

Their  aim  was  to  be  thorough  and  like 
Christ.  They  denounced  the  sin  of  luxury 
among  professing  Christians,  and  spared  no 
one,  lay  or  clerical :  so  did  Christ,  they  said. 
They  set  their  faces  against  the  priestly  class 
altogether,  and  maintained  that  Christ  as 
High  Priest  needed  no  subordinate  or  go- 
between,  and  that  the  modern  parson  was 
only  the  ancient  Pharisee,  whom  Christ  was 
never  weary  of  denouncing.  They  were 
anti-Sabbatarians  too,  as  He  had  been,  and 
held  the  doctrine  of  freedom  in  Christ 
throughout.  They  believed  implicitly  every 
word  of  the  Gospels,  which  they  stood  by  as 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  19 

fuller  of  the  Divine  Life  than  the  Epistles  ; 
and  they  thought  that  the  Example  left  the 
world  was  the  one  thing  to  follow  and  the 
one  pattern  to  imitate.  Joshua's  great  hope 
and  desire,  confessed  among  us,  was  to  bring 
back  the  world  to  the  simplicity  and  broad 
humanity  of  Christ's  acted  lif e ;  and  as  a 
believer  in  the  divinity  of  that  life,  he  could 
not  understand  how  it  had  been  let  drop. 
His  one  central  point  was  the  same  now  as 
that  which  had  formerly  troubled  him — and 
Mr.  Grand ;  namely,  how,  if  Christ  was  God, 
and  His  life  given  to  us  as  our  example,  do 
we  not  follow  it  literally,  in  simple  exactness, 
and  as  we  find  it  set  before  us  in  the  Gos- 
pels %  And  he  believed  that  God  would 
strengthen  his  hands,  not  only  to  enable  him 
to  realise  this  in  his  own  person,  but  also  to 

evangelise  society,  and  bring  it  over  to  the 

c  2 


20  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

Truth  alono^  with  him.  He  was  waitinof 
for  a  Sign  ;  and  he  believed  it  would  be 
given  him. 

He  was  but  a  young  man  at  this  time, 
remember  ;  enthusiastic,  with  little  or  no 
scientific  knowledge  and  with  much  of  the 
logic  of  fanaticism;  unable  to  judge  between 
the  possible  and  the  impossible,  and  putting 
the  direct  interposition  of  God  above  the 
natural  law.  Wherefore,  he  accepted  the 
text  about  faith  removing;  mountains  as 
literally  true,  and  possible  to  be  done.  Given 
the  faith,  the  mountain  would  move.  And 
one  evening  he  went  down  into  the  Eocky 
Valley,  earnest  to  try  conclusions  with  God's 
promise,  and  sure  of  proving  it  true.  He  had 
fasted  all  day,  and  he  liad  prayed  all  day ; 
not  necessarily  kneeling  and  repeating  set 
forms,  but  in  the  whole  attitude  of  his  mind ; 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  21 

and  in  the  twilioiit  when  work  was  over  he 

o 

went  down  with  three  of  us,  myself  and  two 
others,  all  certain  that  the  truth  of  the  Word 
would  be  made  manifest,  and  that  he  could 
remove  rocks  by  faith. 

He  prayed  to  God  to  grant  us  this  mani- 
festation— to  redeem  His  promise.  He  was 
full  of  faith  :  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  chilled 
or  slacked  him.  As  he  stood  there  in  the 
softening  twilight,  with  his  arms  raised 
above  his  head  and  his  face  turned  up  to 
the  sky,  his  countenance  glowed  as  Moses' 
of  old.  He  seemed  inspired,  transported 
beyond  himself,  beyond  humanity.  He 
commanded  the  stone  to  move  in  God's 
name,  and  because  Christ  had  promised :  and 
we  knelt  beside  him,  not  so  much  tremblinsf 
as  exalted,  feeling  in  the  very  presence  of 
the  Divine,  and  that  He  would  do  unto  us 


2  2  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

according  to  His  word.  But  the  rock  stood 
still ;  and  a  stonechat  went  and  perched 
on  it. 

Another  time  he  took  up  a  viper  in  his 
hand,  quoting  the  passage,  ''They  shall 
take  up  serpents."  But  the  beast  stung 
him,  and  he  was  ill  for  days  after.  So, 
when  he  ate  a  handful  of  the  berries  of  the 
black  briony,  and  all  but  died  of  the  poison. 
Yet  he  had  handled  the  viper  and  eaten  the 
berries  in  faith  as  simple  and  sincere  as 
when  he  had  commanded  the  stone  in  the 
Rocky  Valley  to  move. 

When  the  doctor  was  called  in,  and 
Joshua  told  him,  boylike,  what  he  had  done 
and  why  and  in  what  spirit,  he  shook  his 
head  gravely,  and  told  his  mother  he  was 
mad  and  had  better  be  looked  after. 

"  No,  no,  not  mad,  sir,  because  I  believe 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  23 

the  Bible,  and  have  determined  to  lead  a 
life  after  Christ's  ^Yord  and  example,"  said 
Joshua. 

''  Tut  !  rubbish  I "  said  the  doctor. 
"  What  you've  got  to  do,  my  lad,  is  to 
plane  your  wood  smooth  and  make  your 
joists  firm.  All  this  religious  folly  of 
yours  has  no  sense  in  it.  I  tell  you  it  will 
upset  your  brain,  and  that  you  are  mad 
now,  and  will  be  madder  if  you  don't  pull 
up  in  time.'^ 

"  So  Festus  said  to  St.  Paul,  sir  ;  but  he 
was  not  mad,  nor  am  I." 

"But  what  do  you  want  to  do,  jackass  ?  '^ 
said  the  doctor  with  a  good-humoured  kind 
of  impatience.  "  What's  amiss  with  your 
poor  foolish  head  that  you  can't  take  things 
easy  5 

"  I  want  to  find  out  which  is  true,  sir," 


24  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

answered  Joshua :  ''  the  Bible  which  or- 
dains certain  ways  of  life ;  or  the  Christian 
world  which  disobeys  them.  If  Christ  was 
God,  there  is  but  one  way  for  us  all.  He 
could  not  have  left  us  an  imperfect  example 
to  be  mended  here  and  there  as  we  think 
best  for  the  convenience  of  society.  He  is 
God  or  man ;  for,  as  things  are,  it  is  not 
God  and  man — Christ  and  Christians  ;  and 
I  V\^ant  to  know  which  is  the  truth." 

*'  Take  my  advice,''  said  the  doctor 
kindly ;  "  put  all  these  thoughts  out  of 
your  head  as  quickly  as  you  can.  Get 
some  work  to  do  in  a  new  part  of  the 
country,  fall  in  love  wdth  some  nice  girl, 
and  marry  as  soon  as  you  can  make  a  home 
for  her.  Give  over  reading;  the  Bible  for  a 
time,  and  look  up  some  pleasant  stories  and 
books  of  travel,  and  the  like ;  and  leave  off 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  25 

eating  poison-berries  and  handling  vipers. 
That's  the  only  life  for  you,  depend  upon  it ; 
and  though  I  am  no  theologian,  I  venture 
to  say,  that  working  honestly  in  that  state 
of  life  to  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  call 
you,  going  to  church,  keeping  out  of  beer- 
shops,  and  living  like  your  respectable  neigh- 
bours, is  a  far  better  kind  of  thing  tlum 
all  this  high-flown  religion  you  are  hanker- 
ing after.  Depend  upon  it,  our  best  religion 
is  to  do  our  duty,  and  to  leave  the  care  of 
our  souls  to  those  whose  business  it  is  to 
look  after  them." 

"  Thank  you,  sir ;  you  mean  kindly," 
said  Joshua.  "  But  God  has  given  me  other 
thoughts,  and  I  must  obey  them  if  I  would 
not  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost." 

And  the  doctor  said  afterwards  to  Mr. 
Grand,  that  he  was  quite  touched  at  the  lad's 


26  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

sweetness  and  wrong-headedness  combined, 
and  would  have  given  mucli  to  have 
been  able  to  send  him  there  and  then  to 
a  lunatic  asylum,  where  he  might  have 
been  taken  care  of  for  a  time  and  put  to 
rights. 

The  failure  of  these  trials  of  faith  per- 
plexed us  all,  and  profoundly  afflicted 
Joshua.  Not  many  men  have  gone  through 
greater  spiritual  anguish,  I  should  suppose, 
than  he  did  at  this  time.  It  was  like  the 
sudden  darkening  of  the  sun  to  him,  and 
the  doubt  of  himself  which  it  brought  Avas 
nearer  madness  than  his  simple  faith  had 
been.  He  passed  through  a  bad  time;  when 
his  soul  went  down  into  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow,  if  ever  man  s  did  I  But  in  time  he 
came  out  into  the  light  again.  He  knew 
his  own  sincerity,  and  his  entire  acceptance 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  27 

of  the  Word  of  God  and  of  the  Divinity  of 
Christ;  and  he  could  not  think  that  God 
had  met  his  prayer  with  a  rebuff.  God, 
who  knew  the  heart,  would  he  felt  sure 
have  accepted  his  endeavour,  had  that  en- 
deavour been  within  the  scope  of  His  plan 
for  humanity.  It  was  the  first  struggle 
between  Faith  and  Law,  Eevelation  and 
Nature,  through  which  every  inquiring 
mind  has  to  pass ;  and  it  was  a  bitter 
one. 

He  said  nothing  of  these  thoughts  for 
many  weeks.  He  was  not  a  youth  who 
jumped  to  conclusions,  but  rather  one  who 
pondered  well,  and  who  let  his  thoughts 
ripen  ;  but  at  last  he  spoke  one  evening, 
when  we  were  o;athered  too;ether  as  usual, 
after  work. 

"  Friends/'  he  said,    "  it  seems  to  me — 


28  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

indeed,  I  think  we  must  all  see  it  now — 
tlmt  His  Word  is  not  to  be  accepted  lite- 
rally, and  not  to  be  acted  on  in  all  its 
details.  The  laws  of  Nature  are  supreme, 
and  even  faith  cannot  change  them.  Can 
it  be,"  he  then  said  solemnly,  "  that  much 
of  that  Word  is  a  parable  ? — that  Christ 
was  truly  as  he  says  of  Himself,  the  corner 
stone,  but  not  the  whole  building  ? — and 
that  we  have  to  carry  on  the  work  in  His 
spirit,  but  in  our  ovm  way,  and  not  merely 
to  try  and  repeat  His  acts  % '' 

I  do  not  think  we  were  prepared  for  such 
a  speech.  We  looked  at  one  another  un- 
easily, even  the  dimmest  of  us  seeing  some- 
thing of  the  conclusions  to  which  such  a 
principle  would  lead  us,  and  forecasting  the 
rudderless  wandering  of  souls  that  would 
ensue.       But   Joshua  would    say   no    more. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  29 

He  bade  us  good-night  soon  after,  and  it 
was  long  before  we  renewed  the  subject. 
We  all  felt  that  he  had  broken  dangerous 
oTOund  ;  for  had  we  not  set  out  with  the 
determination  to  realise  Christ  in  our  lives, 
founded  on  our  conviction  of  the  literal- 
ness,  the  absolute  uncompromising  truth  of 
every  word  in  the  tjospels  % — a  truth  not  to 
be  explained  away,  or  paraphrased  in  any 
manner  of  worldly  wisdom  or  expediency  ; 
but  to  be  accepted  crude,  naked,  entire  as 
it  is  set  down  ?  It  was  one  thing  or  the 
other — Christ  or  society,  the  Bible  or  the 
world.  It  could  not  be  both ;  but  once 
admit  the  right  of  choice,  of  criticism,  and 
where  was  then  our  standard  ?  Yet  again, 
what  could  we  make  of  that  text  about 
faith,  when  we  had  proved  it  for  ourselves 
and  found  it  wanting  ?     And  if  Avrong  in 


so  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

ever  so  small  a  matter,  was  not  our  theory 
of  absolute  infallibility  at  an  end  ?  But  if 
absolute  infallibility  was  at  an  end,  was 
not  that  making  Christ  a  mere  temporary 
teacher,  local  and  for  the  day — not  universal 
and  for  all  time;  and  God  a  bit  by  bit 
worker  ?  And  if  so,  and  even  Gospel  reve- 
lation is  not  final,  where  then  exists  the 
absolute  necessity  of  acceptance  ?  Yet,  if 
we  came  to  this  conclusion — sorrowfullest  of 
all ! — we  must  relinquish  all  anchorage  every- 
where, and  do  our  best  to  piece  together  a 
theory  of  life  for  ourselves,  glad  if  any  of 
the  broken  frao;ments  of  faith  mio;ht  still 
serve  us. 

But  we  were  far  off,  as  yet,  from  any  such 
conclusions ;  and  the  Christ  life,  and  the 
Gospel  narrative,  and  the  need  laid  on  us 
all  to  follow  in  the  Master's  steps,  and  be- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  31 

lieve  as  He  taught,  and  do  as  He  did,  were 
still  the  cardinal  points  of  Joshua's  creed, 
and  the  object  of  his  endeavours  :  and,  with 
him,  of  ours. 


THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 


CHAPTER  III. 


It  was  after  this  that  we  noticed  a  certain 
restlessness  in  Joshua.  He  seemed  to  feel 
the  narrowness  of  his  life  down  at  such  a 
dead  place  as  Trevalga,  where  a  man  must 
work  hard  to  keep  body  and  soul  together, 
and  keep  them  very  poorly  when  he  has  done 
his  best ;  and  where  he  cannot  get  forward 
save  by  his  own  thoughts.  There  is  nothing 
for  an  energetic-minded  young  man  to  do  there 
after  his  day's  work  is  over.  No  lectures, 
no  mechanics'  institute,  no  library  ;  only  a 
few  books  to  be  borrowed  here  and  there  by 
chance.     And   Boscastle   and   Trevenna  are 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  33 

no  farther  advanced  ;  nor  was  even  Camel- 
ford  in  those  days.  And  then  Camelford  is 
full  five  miles  away,  across  a  wild  whisht 
country  that  does  not  invite  much  night 
walking.  To  be  sure  there  are  the  cliffs  and 
the  sea,  the  waterfall  up  at  Knighton's 
Kieve,  the  rocks  and  the  old  ruins  at  Tin- 
tagel — King  Arthur  s  Castle — which  fill  the 
imagination.  But  imagination  does  very 
wxll  for  extreme  youth,  as  looking  back  does 
for  old  age  :  a  man  coming  to  his  prime 
wants  action. 

An  opening  however  came  in  time,  and 
Joshua  had  an  offer  to  go  up  to  London  to 
follow  his  trade  at  a  large  house  in  the  City ; 
which  he  accepted;  and  got  me  a  job  as  well, 
that  I  mio^it  be  alono-side  of  him.  For  we 
were  like  brothers  ;  he,  the  elder,  the  better, 
the  leader ;  and  I,  the  younger,  the  led.    And 


34  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

neither  was  afraid  of  work ;  or.  let  me  add, 
afraid  for  our  work.  AYe  were  skilled  in  our 
trade  so  far  as  we  could  be  without  first-rate 
teaching,  having  made  it  a  point  of  duty  and 
honour  both,  that  we  should  never  o^ive  folks 
occasion  to  talk  of  us  as  babbling  saunterers, 
who  took  to  the  Bible  because  they  could 
not  manage  the  plane  and  the  saw. 

A  few  days  before  he  went,  Joshua 
happened  to  be  coming  out  of  his  father's 
workshop  just  as  ]\Ir.  Grand  was  passing, 
driving  the  neat  pair-horse  phaeton  he  had 
lately  bought. 

"  "Well,  Joshua,  and  how  are  you  doing  ?  " 
said  the  parson,  pulling  up. 

I  dare  say  he  was  a  good  man  when  he 
was  at  home,  but  Mr.  Grand  was  not  fit  to 
be  a  parish  priest — at  all  events,  not  of  such 
a  place  as  Trevalga.     He  might  have  made 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  35 

a  fine   general   ofificer,  or  a   dignitar}^  in  a 

catliedral  where  he  had  nothing  to  do  with 

the  poor ;  but  among  a  lot  of  half-starving, 

uneducated  creatures,  such  as  you  find  in  a 

by-kind   of   coast  hamlet   in  Cornwall,    he 

was  worse  than  useless.     He   had  no   love 

for  the  poor,  and  no  pity  :  he  always  called 

them  "  the  common  people,"  and  spoke  of 

them  disdainfully,  as  if  they  wxre  different 

creatures   from   gentry.      I  question  if    he 

allowed  us  the  same  kind  of  souls  ;  and  I  do 

know  that  he  denied  equality  of  condition  after 

death,  and  quoted  the  text  of  "many  mansions" 

in  proof  of  his  theory  of  exclusion.     He  was 

a  man  of  good  family  himself,  and  his  wife 

was  the  daughter  of  a  bishop ;  he  was  rich 

too,  and  looked  to  be  made  dean  or  bishop 

himself  by  time.     So  you  see,  Trevalga  was 

only  a   stopping-place  with  him,  where  he 

D  2 


S6  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

just  put  ofi'  tlie  tiaie  the  best  way  he  could 
till  he  saw  his  way  to  better  things  ;  and 
he  didn't  care  a  rush  for  any  one  in  the 
place. 

However,  he  drew  up  at  seeing  Joshua, 
and  asked  him  how  he  was ;  and  then 
said  :  "  And  why  have  you  not  been  to 
church  lately,  my  man  ? "  as  if  Joshua  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  going,  and  had  failed 
only  of  late.  This  was  Mr.  Grand's  way. 
He  never  knew  anything  about  his  people. 
That  gave  them  to  think,  you  see,  that  he 
held  himself  too  high  to  notice  what  such 
poor  A\Tetches  might  be  about.  God  forgive 
me  if  I  misjudge  him  ! 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  Joshua,  ''  I  don't  go  to 
church,  you  know." 

"No?  have  you  joined  the  chapel  then? 
Is  that  your  latest  fad,  Joshua  ? " 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  37 

"No,  sir;  neither  cliurch  nor  chapel," 
answered  Joshua. 

"  What !  a  new  light  on  your  own  account, 
hey  ? "  and  he  laughed  as  if  he  mocked 
him. 

"No,  sir,  only  a  seeker." 

"  The  old  paths  not  good  enough  for 
you  ? — the  light  that  has  lightened  the 
Gentiles  these  eighteen  hundred  years  and 
more  not  pure  enough  for  an  unwashed 
Cornish  lad,  planing  wood  at  a  carpenter's 
bench,  and  not  able  to  speak  two  consecutive 
words  of  orood  Ensjlish  ?  " 

"  I  must  answer  for  my  conscience  to  God, 
sir,"  said  Joshua. 

"  And  your  clergyman,  appointed  by  God 
and  the  State  to  be  your  guide,  what  of 
him  ?  Has  he  no  authority  in  his  own 
parish  %  "  cried  Mr.  Grand  warmly.     "  Does 


38  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

it  never  strike  you,  my  fine  fellow,  that  in 
thinking  for  yourself,  as  you  call  it,  you  are 
flying  in  the  face  both  of  Divine  ordinances 
and  the  laws  of  man,  and  that  you  are 
entering  on  the  sin  of  schism  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  rebellion  on  the  other  ?  ^' 

''Look  here,  sir,"  said  Joshua  with 
earnestness,  but  quite  respectfully  ;  "  if  I 
speak  plainly,  I  mean  it  for  no  offence ;  but 
my  heart  burns  within  me  and  I  must  speak 
out.  I  deny  your  appointment  as  a  God- 
given  leader  of  souls.  The  Church  is  but  the 
old  priesthood  as  it  existed  in  the  days  of 
our  Lord,  and  is,  as  much  as  that  was,  the 
blind  leading  the  blind.  There  are  good 
and  kind  gentlemen  among  you,  but  not 
Christians  according  to  Christ.  I  see  no  sacri- 
fice of  the  world,  no  brotherhood  with  the 
poor ^^ 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  39 

■  "  The  poor  ! "  interrupted  Mr.  Grand  dis- 
dainfully ;  "  what  would  you  have,  you 
young  fool  ?  The  poor  have  the  laws  of 
their  country  to  protect  them,  and  the  Gospel 
preached  to  them  for  their  salvation." 

"  Yes,  and  in  preaching  that — that  is,  in 
giving  two  full  services  on  Sundays,  and 
reading  the  marriage-service  and  the  burial- 
service  and  the  like  of  that  when  you  are 
wanted — you  discharge  your  conscience  of 
all  other  obligations  towards  them,  and  think 
you  have  done  enough.  You  never  seem  to 
remember  that  when  Christ  preached  the 
Gospel  to  the  poor  it  was  to  make  them 
equal  with  the  rich.  Why,  sir,  the  poor  of 
our  day  are  the  lepers  of  Christ's  ;  and  who 
among  you.  Christian  priests,  consorts  with 
them  ?  Who  ranks  the  man  above  his 
station,  or  the  soul  above  the  man  ? '' 


40  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

"  Now,  we  have  come  to  it  1 "  cried  Mr. 
Grand.  "I  thought  I  should  touch  the 
secret  spring  at  last !  And  you  would  like 
us  to  associate  with  you  as  equals  ? — Is  that 
it,  Joshua?  Gentlemen  and  common  men 
hob-and-nob  together,  and  no  distinctions 
made  ?  You  to  ride  in  our  carriages,  and 
perhaps  marry  our  daughters  ?  " 

He  had  his  little  girl  of  six  or  so  in  the 
phaeton  with  him  ;  a  pretty  little  maid  that 
used  to  go  about  dressed  in  blue  velvet  and 
a  white  feather  in  her  hat. 

"  That's  just  it,  sir.  You  are  gentlemen, 
as  you  say,  but  not  the  followers  of  Christ. 
If  you  were,  you  would  have  no  carriages  to 
ride  in,  and  your  daughters  would  be  what 
Martha  and  Mary  and  Lydia  and  Dorcas 
were,  women  of  no  station,  bent  only  on 
servino;  God  and  the  saints,  and  their  title 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  41 

to    ladyhood    founded    on  their  degrees   of 
goodness." 

"  Going  in  for  socialism,  Joslma  ? "  said 
Mr.  Grand,  continuinor  his  banterinor  tone. 
"  A  little  radicalism,  a  little  method  ism,  and 
a  great  deal  of  self-assm\ance — that  seems  to 
me  to  be  about  where  you  are ! " 

"  Going  in  for  no  isms  at  all,  sir,"  said 
Joshua.  "  Only  for  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Christ ! " 

"  Shall  I  tell  you  what  would  be  the  very 
thing  for  you  % "  said  Mr.  Grand  quite 
quietly. 

"  Yes,  sir  ;  what  ?  "  asked  Joshua  eagerly. 

"  This  whip  across  your  shoulders  ! — and, 
by  George,  if  I  were  not  a  clergyman  I  w^ould. 
lay  it  there,  wdth  a  will ! "  cried  the  parson, 
half  rising  from  his  .seat. 

No  one  had  ever  seen  Joshua  angry  since 


42  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

lie  had  grown  up.  His  temper  was  pro- 
verbially sweet,  and  his  self-control  was  a 
marvel.  But  this  time  he  lost  both.  It  w^as 
not  so  much  as  a  maD,  because  of  the  insult 
to  himself;  he  would  have  borne  that  meekly 
enough  ;  but  it  w^as  the  feeling  that  the 
Sacred  Thing  had  been  mocked  in  him  which 
drove  him  into  sudden  anger :  an  anger  so 
violent  and  so  sudden  as  to  take  the 
clergyman  fairly  aback. 

"  God  shall  smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall ! " 
he  cried  with  vehemence.  "Is  this  your 
boastedleadership  of  souls? — this  your  learned 
solving  of  difficulties? — this  your  fatherly 
guidance  of  your  flock  ?  *  Feed  my  lambs ' 
— with  what  ?  with  stones  for  bread — with 
insult  for  sincerity — with  the  gentleman's 
disdain  for  the  poor  thought  of  the  artisan 
— with    class   insolence   for   spiritual   diffi- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  43 

eulties !  Of  a  surety,  Christ  has  to  come 
again  to  repeat  the  work  which  you  priests 
and  churches  have  destroyed  and  made  of 
no  effect,  and  to  strip  you  of  your  ill-used 
power.  You  are  the  gentleman,  sir,  and  I 
am  only  a  poor  carpenter's  son;  but  I  stand 
against  you  now — man  against  man — soul 
against  soul — and  I  spurn  you  with  a  deeper 
and  more  solemn  scorn  than  you  have  spurned 
me !  "  He  lifted  his  hand  as  he  said  this, 
with  a  strange  and  passionate  gesture,  then 
turned  himself  about  and  went  in ;  and 
Mr.  Grand  drove  off  more  his  ill-wisher 
than  before ;  as  perhaps  was  only  natural. 
And  yet  he  richly  deserved  all  he  had 
got. 

This  was  one  of  the  stories  that  got 
bruited  abroad  to  Joshua's  discredit.  Some 
said  he  had  struck  the  parson — some  that  he 


44  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

liad  been  monstrously  and  unjustifiably  im- 
pertinent ;  and  the  tale  got  bandied  about  as 
a  kind  of  dramatic  scarecrow — a  kind  of 
logical  warning  to  young  men  given  to  think 
for  themselves,  as  to  what  would  become  of 
them  if  they  phook  themselves  free  of  autho- 
rity. "  You'll  be  as  bad  as  Joshua  to  Parson 
Grand,"  was  a  phrase  I  myself  heard  more 
than  once.  But  here  is  the  story  just  as  it 
happened  ;  and  I  put  it  to  my  readers — was 
Joshua  so  very  much  to  blame,  all  things 
considered — motives,  feelings,  spiritual  dis- 
appointment, and  that  inner  dignity  of  Man 
which  overpowers  all  social  differences  when 
the  fit  moment  comes  ?  I  can  only  say  that 
never,  to  the  last,  could  he  be  got  to  see  that 
he  had  done  wrong,  and  never,  to  the  last, 
could  I  say  it  or  see  it  either. 

"No,"  he  used  to  say,    "some   kinds    of 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  45 

anger  are  righteous  ;  and  this  was  of 
them/' 

But    Mr.     Grand    made    old    Davidson, 
Joshua's  father,  suffer  for  his  son ;  for  he  took 
away  his  own  custom  from  him,  and  did  him  / 
what  harm  in  the  neighbourhood  a  gentle- 
man's ill-word  can  do  a  workino-  man.     It 

o 

was  a  bad  thmg  for  the  old  man.  The 
Trevalga  schools  were  being  built,  and  St. 
Juliot's  church  was  under  repair,  and  David- 
son, as  the  best  workman  thereabouts,  would 
have  been  sure  to  have  been  head  man  at 
both  jobs.  But  Mr.  Grand,  he  put  his 
spoke  in  that  wheel ;  and  one  day  wihen  I 
took  courage  to  speak  and  plead,  all  I  got 
was  a  recommendation  to  mind  my  own 
business,  and  not  interfere  where  I  was  not 
wanted.  And  tlien  as  if  in  consideration — a 
kind    of    condescendino-    consideration — for 


46  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

my  being  a  "  canter/'  Mr.  Grand  Avound  up 
with  saying  tliat  I  niust  see  he  was  justified 
according  tc  the  law  of  God. 

When  T  challenged  him  hotly,  I  daresay 
intemperately,  I  daresay  even  impertinently, 
for  his  proof— for  you  see  I  was  but  a  poor 
uneducated  artisan,  and  he  was  a  gentleman 
and  a  scholar — he  laughed,  and  said  he  did 
not  argue  with  carpenters'  lads  ;  and  when  I 
answered  back,  he  ordered  me  out  of  the 
house,  saying  T  was  as  pestilent  a  fellow  as 
my  friend ; — I  replying  angrily  that  I  did  not 
think  the  pestilence  rested  with  Joshua. 
Which  ended  the  interview;  not  without  loss 
of  temper  and  dignity  on  both  sides,  and  no 
good  done  to  anyone. 

The  night  before  we  left  for  London 
Joshua  had  a  kind  of  vision  or  waking 
dream,  which  he  told  me  as  we  were  on  our 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  47 

way  to  Launceston,  walking  up  tlie  hill 
from  Boscastle,  while  the  omnibus  toiled 
after  us.  He  was  on  the  cliflf  by  Long 
Island,  when  suddenly  he  seemed  to  be 
caught  away  to  a  wide  plain,  where  many 
men  were  gathered.  In  the  centre  of 
the  plain  was  a  hill,  like  Brown  Willy 
out  there  by  Camelford,  and  on  this 
hill  sat  two  kingly  figures  who  ruled  over 
the  swarming  multitudes  below.  They  sat 
together  hand  in  hand,  and  he  saw  that  they 
were  in  some  mysterious  manner  inseparable. 
The  one  was  dressed  as  a  high  priest,  and 
was  Ecclesiastical  Christianity ;  the  other  as 
a  king,  and  was  Society  ;  and  both  were 
stern,  forbidding,  and  oppressive.  The  only 
persons  to  whom  they  showed  favour  were 
the  well-dressed  and  the  subservient — rich 
people    dressed    in    gold    and   jewels,    and 


48  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

the  poor  and  undistinguished  who  were 
submissive  and  conforming  ;  who  ac- 
cepted all  that  the  high  priest  taught 
without  questioning  the  truth  of  any  part, 
and  who  obeyed  what  the  kino;  ordained 
without  even  so  much  as  a  wish  to  resist. 
These  were  called  Believino;  Christians  and 
Eespectable  Members  of  Society ;  and,  in 
consideration  of  their  obedience,  both  the 
high  priest  and  the  king  smiled  on  them,  and 
spoke  them  fair.  Yet  they  were  scarcely 
friendly  to  their  adherents.  The  one  sur- 
rounded them  with  the  most  monstrous 
shapes  of  demons  cast  by  magic  lanterns 
and  in  everyway  unreal,  of  which  they  were  in 
continual  fear — God,  whom  yet  they  labelled 
"Our  Father/'  and  the  '*  God  of  Love," 
the  most  terrible  looking  demon  of  all ;  and 
the  more  they  were  afraid,   and  the   more 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  49 

cruel  they  believed  Our  Father  to  be,  the 
more  Ecclesiastical  Christia.nity  was  content. 
The  other  bound  them  round  and  round 
with  chains  and  swathing  bands,  till  they 
were  scarcely  able  to  move  or  breathe.  And 
when  they  submitted  to  the  stifling  torture 
with  a  good  grace — some  of  them  even  draw- 
ing the  links  tighter,  and  buckling  up  the 
thongs  more  home  of  their  OAvn  accord, 
and  all  declaring  the  pattern  of  each 
particular  bandage  to  have  been  sent  down 
direct  from  heaven,  and  in  no  wise  invented 
as  an  experiment  by  Society — then  the  king 
smiled  on  them  kindly,  and  praised  them 
with  many  flattering  words ;  and  the  poor 
atrophied  wretches  were  quite  content  with 
the  barren  honour  of  their  reward. 

At  the  feet  of  these  two  rulers  lay  three 
figures  cruelly  bound  and  tortured.      They 


50  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

were  Truth,  bearing  in  her  arms  her 
young  child  Science,  Freedom,  and  Hu- 
manity. All  three  were  stretched  on  racks 
made  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  which  gave 
in  the  eyes  of  the  multitude  a  kind  of 
symbolic  sanction  to  their  torture.  The 
two  rulers  were  for  ever  trying  to  gag  them, 
so  that  they  should  not  speak  ;  but  they 
could  not  quite  succeed ;  and  every  now 
and  then  they  uttered  words,  loud  and  clear 
as  the  sound  of  a  silver  trumpet,  that  stirred 
the  multitude  below,  and  set  men  running 
hither  and  thither,  some  shaking  themselves 
free  of  the  bonds  in  which  both  Christianity 
and  Society  had  bound  them.  And  when 
they  spoke,  the  high  priest  and  the  king  and 
their  worshippers,  all  the  well-dressed  little 
kings  and  poorer  conformists,  buffeted  them ; 
and  would  have  killed  them  if  thev  could. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  51 

Ill-treated  as  they  were  however,  each 
tortured  being  had  a  small  knot  of  adherents. 
Bound  Truth,  bearing  her  young  child, 
Science,  gathered  men  of  imposing  aspect — 
men  of  authority,  of  large  brains,  of  tem- 
perate nature,  of  clear  and  candid  thought. 
There  were  some  among  them  of  such  un- 
questionable grandeur,  tliat  even  the  mob  of 
Believing  Christians  and  Eespectable  Mem- 
bers of  Society  paid  them  a  certain  cold,  de- 
precatory reverence  as  they  passed;  while 
Ecclesiastical  Christianity  tried  to  reconcile 
their  statements  with  his  own  creed,  hiding 
his  magic  lantern  painted  with  demons  and 
that  all-devouring  hell  with  which  he  terri- 
fied the  multitudes,  when  he  spoke  to  them ; 
saying,  "  See,  there  is  no  such  great  difier- 
ence  between  us  after  all !  I  do  not  con- 
tradict you.     Say  what  you  will  about  the 

B  2 


52  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

sun,  and  tlie  age  of  the  earth,  the  relations 
of  the  universe,  and  the  gradual  evolution  of 
man,  nothing  that  you  advance  disturbs 
me.  I  only  suj)plement  you,  and  add  the 
divine  grace  of  spiritual  truth,  which  is 
beyond  your  analysis.  You  are  right 
and  I  am  right ;  let  us  be  friends  and 
brothers." 

Society  was  less  concerned  about  these 
.philosophers.  They  were  for  the  most  part 
swathed  in  Ms  bands  tight  enough ;  some  for 
pre-occupation  with  other  matters,  some  for 
expediency,  some  for  dread  of  the  unknown, 
and  some  for  conviction ;  and,  for  the  rest, 
he  let  his  twin-brother,  the  high  priest,  fight 
his  battles  as  he  best  could. 

Eound  the  prostrate  form  of  Freedom, 
scarred,  gashed,  bleeding,  fettered,  stood 
only  a  few.     Even  the  men  of  science  were 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  53 

afraid  of  this  huge  giant,  this  son  of  the 
old  god^,  whose  might  no  one  had  been  able 
to  calculate  should  he  once  arise  in  his 
strength.  All,  save  his  own  few  lovers, 
chiefly  of  the  poorest  class,  looked  on 
him  with  dread,  and  prophesied  evil 
days  for  the  world  should  he  ever  get  free 
of  his  bonds  and  the  symbolic  constraint 
of  the  cross.  But  his  small  band  of  lovers, 
themselves  either  martyrs  or  victims,  worked 
incessantly  at  his  deliverance ;  every  now 
and  then  getting  one  link  loosened  here  and 
another  there,  knowing  that  in  time  he  would 
with  their  help  shake  himself  free  of  all 
his  chains,  and  stand  up  before  the  world, 
the  great-hearted  leader,  the  glad  possession 
of  every  man  and  woman  that  breathes. 

The   third   figure   was   the  most   deeply 
oppressed.     The  face  was  hidden,  but  it  was 


54  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

a  lovely  form,  vilely  clad  in  disfiguring  gar- 
ments, and  bespattered  with  dirt  that  had 
been  flung  at  it  by  the  high  priest  and 
Society  in  concert.  On  its  nailed  hands 
hung  tlie  weeping  and  the  miserable ;  and 
no  one  was  rejected  or  bidden  back.  The 
most  miserable  sinner  that  crawled — the 
thief,  the  murderer,  the  harlot — it  gathered 
them  all  around  it ;  its  own  bound  hands 
doing  their  checked  best  to  free  them  from 
their  stains.  Pleasure  and  pain  and  sin  and 
virtue  all  rested  equally  on  its  large  breast, 
and  to  all  it  gave  full  sympathy  and  under- 
standing. It  condemned  no  one  ;  only  it 
refused  obedience  to  the  high  priest  and  the 
king.  As  the  dreamer  looked,  it  slowly 
turned  its  face  to  the  sky  :  and  Joshua  re- 
cognised in  the  soiled  and  vilified  face  of 
Humanity — the  face  of  Christ. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  55 

Suddenly  standing  side  by  side  with  tne 
magnificently  attired  j)ontiff,  this  Eccle- 
siastical Christianity,  oppressor  of  Truth, 
slanderer  of  Humanity,  t3rrant  of  Freedom, 
ruler  of  the  churches,  and  through  them  of 
the  consciences  of  men  ;  side  by  side  too, 
with  his  tmn-brother  Society,  his  fellow- 
tyrant  and  oppressor,  w^as  a  man  coarsely 
clad  in  rude  garments,  a  man  of  uncul- 
tured speech,  of  unconventional  manners, 
but  of  a  noble  aspect,  whose  face  was 
the  face  of  an  enthusiast  who  believed  in 
himself,  and  in  whose  self-reliance  were  his 
sole  credentials.  His  companions  were  the 
same  as  those  who  had  gathered  round  the 
crucified  form  of  Humanity.  All  the  poor 
and  the  miserable,  the  leprous,  the  sinners, 
the  outcast,  and  those  "  sinless  Cains "  of 
history,  those  men  who  had  lived  to  do  good 


56  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

to  their  generation,  and  who  had  been  stoned 
and  crucified  and  blasphemed  and  cursed  as 
their  reward — they  were  all  clustered  closely 
round  him.  He  had  nothing  to  do  with 
that  regal  Society,  that  mitred  Christianity. 
He  loudly  proclaimed  his  antagonism  to 
both,  and  drew  to  him  only  such  as  they 
spurned  and  rejected. 

He  pointed  to  the  high  priest  :  "  Look," 
he  said  to  Joshua,  "  what  they  have  made  of 
me;  of  an  unskilled  artisan,  no  schoolman  even 
of  his  day,  and  a  vagrant  preacher  living  by 
charity,  they  have  made  a  king ;  of  a  man,  a 
god ;  of  a  preacher  of  universal  tolerance, 
the  head  of  a  persecuting  religion  ;  of  a  life, 
a  dogma ;  of  an  example,  a  church.  Here 
am  I,  Jesus  the  Nazarene,  the  son  of  Joseph 
and  Mary,  as  I  lived  on  earth  ;  poor,  un- 
learned, a  plebeian,  and   a  socialist,   at  war 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  57 

with  the  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  my  society, 
the  enemy  of  forms,  of  creeds,  of  the 
priestly  class  of  respectabilities  ;  and  there 
you  see  my  modern  travesty,  this  jewelled, 
ornate,  exclusive  Ecclesiastical  Christianity, 
who  is  the  ancient  Pharisee  revived.  To 
you,  and  to  such  as  you,  is  given  the  task 
of  bringing  men  back  to  the  creed  that  I 
preached.  And  if  in  securing  the  essence  of 
the  creed  you  forget  the  Founder,  and  call 
my  doctrine  by  another  name  than  mine,  so 
be  it.  The  world  wants  the  thing,  not  the 
label ;  and  Christ-likeness,  not  Ecclesias- 
tical Christianity,  is  the  best  Saviour  of 
men/' 

As  he  said  this  the  whole  vision  seemed 
to  fade  away,  and  the  voice  of  Peggy  Bray, 
whining  and  drunk,  with  ]\Ir.  Grand's  deep 
tones    of    angry    di-sgust,    broke    the    cjuiet 


S8  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

evening  stillness,  and  brought  Josliua  back 
to  the  realities  of  life. 

"  Something  seemed  to  bid  me,"  he  said, 
when  he  told  me  the  story :  "  I  ran  oflf 
over  the  down  as  fast  as  I  could,  and  caught 
Peggy  on  the  Tintagel  Eoad.  She  was 
drunk,  dirty,  and  crying.  I  took  her  by 
the  hand.  '  Peggy,  woman,'  I  said,  *  dry 
your  eyes,  and  come  along  with  me/  I 
spoke  so  sudden,  I  startled  her,  and  so  a 
little  sobered  her.  Then  I  took  her  by  the 
arm  and  led  her  to  mother's  cottas^e.  *  Here, 
mother,'  I  said ;  '  here  is  a  bit  of  Christ- 
work  for  you  to  do.  Take  this  poor  creature, 
in  her  dirt  and  vileness  as  she  is,  and  cleanse 
her.  You  believe  and  know  that  God's  love 
did  that  for  the  world  :  we  are  less  pure 
than  Christ,  but  we  hold  ourselves  too  fine 
to  follow  His  example  in  that !     Love  her, 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  59 

mother  ;  she  is  your  sister — and  maybe  your 
love  can  heal  her/  Poor  mother  !  she  didn't 
like  the  task.  She  cried  over  it,  and  said 
that  I  put  a  burden  on  her  she  could  not 
bear ;  but  I  held  to  my  poiut,"  said  Joshua, 
with  a  glowing  face  ;  "  and  she  yielded. 
Peggy  stayed  in  our  house  for  over  a  month, 
and  mother  was  ill-called  for  her  work.  Not 
that  she  much  cared,  I  fancy.  I  don't  know, 
however,  whether  she  did  or  not ;  she  never 
said  much.  And  though  Peggy  broke  out 
again  and  went  to  the  bad  as  before,  yet  a 
month's  experience  of  loving-kindness  and 
cleauly  living  was  something.  At  all  events, 
it  was  practical  Christianity ;  and  if  it  did 
Peggy  herself  little  or  no  good  permanently, 
it  was  the  right  thing  to  do,  and  mother  was 
so  far  benefited." 


6o  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 


CHAPTER  IV. 

In  London  a  new  view  of  life  opened  to 
Joshua  altoo;etlier.  Tlie  first  thinoj  that 
struck  him  in  our  workshop  was  the  avowed 
infidelity  of  the  workmen,  with  the  indif- 
ference so  many  of  them  showed  for  any 
spiritual  life  at  all.  Having  apparently  made 
up  their  minds  that  Christianity,  as  taught  by 
the  churches  and  practised  in  high  places,  is 
a  humbug  throughout,  they  seemed  to  have 
stopped  there,  not  caring  to  go  farther,  nor 
to  find  a  truer  and  better  religion  for  them- 
selves.    Distrust  had  penetrated  to  their  in- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  6i 

most  souls,  and  God  was  abandoned  because 
man  had  betrayed  them.  Some  of  the  better 
class  among  them  had  become  Unitarians ; 
whicli  gave  them  the  most  religion  with  the 
least  dogma  of  all  the  sects  that  go  by  the 
name  of  Christian  ;  and  some  had  transferred 
their  whole  passion  and  life  of  thought 
and  intellectual  energy  to  science,  finding 
that  consolation  in  nature  whicb  they  could 
not  get  from  revelation.  But  very  few  were 
what  is  called  religious  men  :  that  is,  men 
believing  in  the  Bible,  going  to  church  on 
Sundays,  and  reverencing  the  clergy  as  men 
placed  over  them  by  a  higher  power  to  guide 
theii'  souls  as  they  would. 

The  immense  gulf  existing  between  the 
church  and  the  workmen  also  surprised  the 
Cornish  lad.  At  home,  though  the  cottagers 
and  the  clergy  stood   as  wide  as  the  poles 


62  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

apart,  socially  and  intellectually,  yet  there 
was  some  kind  of  mutual  knowledge  and 
intercourse ;  wliicli,  if  it  meant  little  for 
human  wants  and  less  for  spiritual  needs, 
still  was  intercourse  and  knowledge.  In 
London  there  was  none ;  or  so  little  in  pro- 
portion to  the  work  to  be  done,  it  seemed 
almost  as  good  as  none.  The  parish  priest, 
save  in  some  chiefly  ritualistic  exceptions, 
scarcely  exists,  and  his  place  is  supplied  by 
all  sorts  of  lieutenants,  both  authorised  and 
irregular  ;  by  Bible  women,  the  City  mis- 
sioixaries.  Baptists,  Eoman  Catholics,  and  the 
thousand  and  one  odd,  obscure  sectaries  of 
whom  no  one  in  good  society  ever  heard 
the  names  —  anything  rather  than  the 
fashionable  preacher  who  has  invested  all  his 
store  of  godliness  in  his  sermons,  or  the  bene- 
ficed   clergyman    who    thinks   his   East-end 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  63 

income  dearly  bought  at  the   price   of  his 
East-end  residence. 

As  he  grew  however,  to  understand  the 
inner  relations  of  life  in  the  metropolis,  he 
ceased  to  wonder  at  the  wide-spread  in- 
differentism  of  the  working  men ;  and  he 
came  further  to  understand  how  religion,  like 
other  things,  had  followed  that  class  antago- 
nism felt  by  the  artisan,  to  wdiich  the  exclu- 
siveness  of  caste  cherished  by  the  rich  had 
given  birth.  Christianity  represents  to  the 
poor,  not  Christ  tender  to  the  sinful,  visiting 
the  leprous,  the  brother  of  publicans,  at  whose 
feet  sat  the  harlots  and  were  comforted,  but 
the  bishop  in  his  palace  and  the  parson  in 
his  grand  house,  the  gentleman  taking  sides 
with  God  against  the  poor  and  oppressed,  as 
an  elder  brother  in  the  courts  of  heaven 
kicking  the  younger  out  of  doors.     It  is  in 


64  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

fact,  lie  used  to  say,  antagonism  not  love ; 
Cain  not  Christ. 

His  religious  experiences  followed  tlie 
natural  course  of  sucli  a  mind  as  his,  at  once 
so  earnest  and  so  logical.  Attracted  by  the 
self-sacrificing  lives  of  so  many  of  the  Eitual- 
ist  party,  he  threw  himself  with  ardour  into 
the  congregation  of  a  noted  City  priest 
whose  name  I  do  not  feel  justified  in  giving, 
as  I  have  not  asked  his  consent.  If,  how- 
ever, he  should  read  these  pages  he  will 
remember  Joshua  Davidson  well  enough. 
The  Superior,  as  he  was  called,  took  to  him 
greatly,  and  Joshua  felt  all  the  charm  of 
close  intercourse  with  a  cultivated  mind.  It 
was  the  first  time  this  great  good  had  been 
granted  him,  and  it  was  like  a  new  life  to 
him.  At  one  time  I  thought  he  would  have 
abandoned    the    independent    line   he   had 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  65 

diosen  and  would  have  gone  over  to  the  High 
Church  party;  but  I  do  not  think  now  that  he 
was  ever  very  near.  For,  fascinated  as  he  Avas 
with  the  earnestness  and  culture  of  the  Supe- 
rior and  his  colleagues,  they  failed  to  hold  him 
mainly  because  of  the  largeness  of  their  asser- 
tions, the  smallncss  of  their  proofs,  and  the 
feeling  he  had  that  more  lay  behind  their 
position  than  they  acknowledged,  and  that 
they  used  their  adherents  as  tools.  Added 
to  which,  their  devotion  to  the  Church  rather 
than  to  Christianity  at  large,  the  absorption 
of  the  human  example  of  Christ  in  His 
mystical  character,  the  deification  of  the  man 
as  He  lived,  as  if  He  had  walked  about  like 
a  God  with  a  halo  round  His  head,  and  was 
not  a  real  man  of  the  people  of  his  time — 
of  lowly  birth,  of  confessed  scientific  igno- 
rance, in  antagonism  to  all  the  wealth  and 


66  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

culture,  and  class-refinement  and   political 
economy  of  His  day,    fighting  the  cause  of 
the   poor   against  the   rich,    of  the    outcast 
against  the  aristocrats,  just  as  any  earnest 
democrat,    any    single-hearted    communist, 
might  be  doing  at  the  present  day — all  this 
repelled  him  from  close  union  ;    and  all  this 
made  him  feel  that,  great  and  good  as  the  men 
themselves  are,  in  the  High  Church  movement 
was   not  his  Shekinah.      Then  again,  their 
elaborate  system  of    symbolism    seemed   to 
him  puerile  ;  a  playing  with  spiritual  toys 
that  had  less  reality  than   ingenuity  ;  and 
their  central  creed  of  sacrifice   rather  than 
commemoration  in  the  Eucharist,  backed  by 
their  assumption  of  a  priesthood  possessing 
unproved  and  mysterious  powers,  failed  to 
convince  him. 

"  You  have  captivated  my  heart,"  he  one 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  67 

day  said  to  the  Superior — ''  you  charm  my 
tastes — you  delight  my  imagination  ;  but 
you  have  not  mastered  my  reason.  Fairly 
reasoned  out  I  do  not  think  your  position 
is  tenal)le.  You  are  Eoman  Catholics  under 
another  name ;  irregulars  claiming  to  be  re- 
ceived on  the  footino'  of  the  acknowledged 
Body  Guard ;  you  are  infallible  yet  eclectic, 
and  I  cannot  concede  infallibility  to  eclec- 
ticism." 

"  But  have  you  no  reverence  for  the 
virtues  of  obedience  and  humility  ? "  asked 
the  Superior.  "  Cannot  you  quell  that  ques- 
tioning spirit  of  yours  for  the  sake  of  the 
Church's  honour,  and  to  maintain  a  close 
front  ?  Who  can  hope  to  do  anything  as  an 
isolated  unit  against  a  host  ?  Is  not  the 
whole  secret  of  strength  in  organisation  ? " 

"  But  I  cannot  become  part  of  a  system 

!•  2 


68  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

for  expediency ! "  said  Josliua  mournfully. 
"  Some  men  may,  but  it  is  not  given  to  me 
to  be  able  to  stifle  my  own  individual  con- 
science for  any  considerations  of  party 
strength.  I  have  got  it  to  do — to  find  out 
if  practical  Christianity  is  possible  in  the 
world,  and  to  learn  why,  being  Christians, 
we  are  not  of  Christ.  I  know  I  should 
get  something  of  the  kind  in  such  institu- 
tions as  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  and  the  like, 
but  I  should  have  there  so  much  in  excess  of 
the  simple  faith  I  love,  that  I  cannot  join 
them.     I  must  go  on  my  way  alone." 

"  x4nd  you  will  fail,"  said  the  Superior. 
"  No  one  man  can  succeed  in  such  a  search  as 
yours.  Guided  by  wise  counsels  and  su^d- 
ported  by  authority  you  might  come  to  satis- 
factory conclusions ;  but  adrift  on  the  wide 
sea  of  dissent,  and  private  opinion,  and  indi- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  69 

vidual  interpretation,  you  are  lost.  To 
the  Church  came  the  promise  and  the 
Spirit ;  believe  me  the  Church  is  your  only 
ark." 

"  If  any,  then  the  Eoman  Catholic  at 
once,  frankly  and  without  reserve,"  said 
Joshua.  "  If  the  keys  of  life  and  death  are 
held  by  a  governing  body,  they  are  surely 
held  within  the  Vatican  ;  and  if  I  must 
enter  irto  the  virtue  of  unquestioning  obe- 
dience, I  would  rather  accept  it  in  its  to- 
tality. Your  ritualism  seems  to  me  like 
Canute  and  the  waves.  *  Thus  far  and  no 
farther,'  you  say  to  private  inquiry ;  and  'only 
so  much  and  so  much  will  we  take  of  tradi- 
tion and  the  \dtality  of  past  ages.'  Where 
is  your  standing-point?  where  your  logical 
foothold  ?  By  what  authority  do  you  re- 
ject and  accept  at  will  \  and  by  what  mea- 


70  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

sure  do  you  set  the  length  of  the  tether  of 
reason  ?  ^' 

•''  If  you  are  for  the  whole  history  of  the 
Church  you  must  read  more  closely  than 
you  have  done,"  said  the  Superior  a  little 
evasively. 

*'  Forgive  me,  sir,"  continued  Joshua 
earnestly ;  ''I  know  you  will,  whatever  I 
say ;  for  I  am  speaking  now  heart-open, 
man  to  man,  and  there  is  no  question  of  dis- 
courtesy or  of  courtesy ;  but  with  all  my 
personal  love  and  admiration  for  the  pro- 
fessors of  your  creed,  the  creed  itself  is 
tainted  with  an  insincerity  I  cannot  digest. 
And  your  position,  standing  as  you  do  in 
the  front,  between  yearning  souls  demanding 
the  support  of  authority,  the  moral  protec- 
tion of  infallibility,  and  the  only  Western 
Church  that  can  give  it  logically,  is,  to  my 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  71 

way  of  thinking,  both  dangerous  to  your- 
selves and  cruel  to  the  people.  Why  do 
you  not  go  over  to  Rome  at  once,  sir,  since 
your  commission  is  self-appointed  and  irre- 
gular \ " 

The  Superior  smiled  gently.  "  I  never 
argue,"  he  said ;  "  for  I  never  found  any 
good  to  come  of  it.  These  questions  are 
matters  for  spiritual  reception,  not  dialec- 
tical discussion.  Use  the  appointed  means 
and     the     grace   of     our    Lord   will    find 

you." 

*'  I  have  used  them ;  I  do  use  them  ;  and 
yet  I  cannot  get  conviction,"  Joshua  made 
answer,  as  sorrowfully  as  frankly. 

"  Persevere  ! "  said  the  Superior  solemnly; 
"  the  promises  of  God  never  failed  yet." 

Joshua  did  not  speak.  He  remembered 
his  trial  of  the  material  promises  and  how 


72  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

they  failed ;  but  he  did  not  go  into  that 
with  the  Superior.  He  had  learat  to  look 
back  on  the  phase  through  which  he  had 
passed  then  as  a  boyish  craze,  sincere  if  you 
will,  but  a  craze  all  the  same.  Yet  it  had 
struck  into  him,  and,  perhaps  unknown  to 
himself  how  much,  had  helped  greatly  to 
modify  his  views.  It  had  broken  down  his 
belief  in  the  literal  exactness  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  the  science-lectures  he  attended 
went  the  same  way ;  and  when  one's  child- 
like confidence  has  received  its  first  shock, 
it  is  Ions:  before  anythino^  like  an  analosfous 
faith  is  reconstructed  out  of  more  mature 
knowledge. 

At  this  time  Joshua's  mind  was  like  an 
unpiloted  vessel.  He  was  beset  with 
doubts,  in  which  the  only  thing  that  kept 
its    shape    or    place  was    the    character    of 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  73 

Christ.     For  the  rest,  everything  had  failed 
him. 

"  What/'  he  said  to  me  at  this  time, 
"if  the  spiritual  life  is  as  little  real  as 
that  act  of  faith  in  which  we  all  failed  ? — 
if  what  we  call  conviction  is  only  a 
state  of  the  mind — a  subjective  condition 
owning  no  absolute  without — a  state  as 
good  and  righteous  for  tKe  Buddhist,  for 
the  Mohammedan,  for  the  Hindoo,  as  for 
the  various  Christian  denominations  ?  We 
are  all  convinced.  Every  creed  has  had  its 
martyrs  and  enthusiasts  and  its  well-trained, 
well-balanced  professors,  all  as  firmly  con- 
vinced of  its  truth  and  of  its  being  the  one 
truth  only,  as  the  Superior  is  convinced  of  the 
absolute  rightness  of  Anglicanism,  as  the 
Pope  believes  in  the  infallibility  of  his 
Church,  and  the  whole  Christian  world  in 
p 


74  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

the  impregnability  of  the  Bible  and  its  literal 
exactness.  I  cannot  focus  Gocl  as  these  men 
are  able  to  do  ;  and  yet  I  feel  it  better  to  be 
rooted  than  wandering,  as  I  am  wandering 
now,  unfixed  and  nnnourished.  If  you  are 
rooted  you  can  grow ;  but  floating,  hover- 
ing, what  is  the  soul  but  as  one  of  those 
winged  seeds  carried  about  by  the  wind 
and  fastened  nowhere  \  " 

"And  yet,"  I  answered,  *'it  is  better  to 
be  unfastened  from  a  fallacy  than  to  be 
rooted  on  it.  There  must  be  the  moment 
of  suspension  when  you  are  in  progress.  To 
mount  a  ladder  you  must  leave  the  rung  on 
which  you  stand,  and  before  you  have  your 
foot  on  the  other  it  is  nowhere — only  in 
space.  The  time  of  doubt  is  a  time  of  pain, 
but  it  must  be  passed  through  if  we  would 
believe  the  better  thing.     To  Lave  lost  the 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  75 

old  land-marks— left  them  behind  us— is 
not  necessarily  to  have  lost  the  right  way, 
Joshua ! " 

*'  Ah !  but  to  have  been  so  near  to  God  as 
I  once  felt  myself— to  have  lived  in  the  light 
— and  now  to  be  so  far  off— to  be  in  darkness 
and  alone  !  "  he  sighed. 

"  The  darkest  hour  is  that  before  dawn," 
was  my  reply.  ''  Even  at  this  moment 
God  may  be  preparing  you  for  con- 
viction." 

I  do  not  think  that  what  is  called  the 
Evangelical  school  ever  warmed  Joshua  as 
the  Eitualists  had  done.  If  the  assumptions 
of  the  Church,  clad  in  her  venerable  autho- 
rity, seemed  to  him  excessive,  the  assump- 
tions of  sectarianism,  where  each  man  is  an 
independent  pope  and  quite  as  bigoted  as 
the  real  one,  Avere  more  so.     And  he  could 


76  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

not  come  to  believe  tliat  faith,  wMcli  is  a 
thing  we  cannot  give  ourselves,  which  will 
not  come  for  the  seeking,  and  which,  when 
we  have  it,  is  as  likely  to  lead  us  wrong  as 
right — unless  all  beliefs  are  true  alike ;  which 
sectarianism  does  not  admit — is  the  one  sole 
means  of  salvatioD,  without  which  we  are 
lost.  It  seemed  to  him  a  theory  entangled 
in  contradictions.  Faith  is  the  gift  of  God ; 
no  one  can  believe  at  will,  but  only  as  God 
gives  him  grace  to  do  so ;  but  if  you  do  not 
believe  you  are  damned,  and  God  punishes 
you  for  not  having  what  He  will  not  bestow. 
Again,  you  have  to  distinguish  between  your 
various  kinds  of  faith,  and  you  must  discern 
accurately  which  kind  is  sent  by  God  and 
which  by  the  devil.  No  outward  test  can 
tell  you  :  for  the  Calvin ist  holds  the  Eo- 
manist  in  deadly  error ;  the  Eomanist  damns 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  77 

the  heretic  \Yith  no  hope  of  mercy ;  the 
Anglican  talks  about  the  deadly  sin  of 
dissent ;  and  not  one  of  them  all  regards  the 
Unitarian,  the  Jew,  or  the  Pagan,  as  in  any 
sort  of  possibility  a  child  of  God,  or  as  aught 
but  a  confirmed,  if  unconscious,  son  of  the 
devil.  What  known  test  then  can  be  applied 
to  all  these  conflicting  schools  ?  To  Joshua's 
mind,  none ;  and  the  more  he  sought  for  the 
unerrino;  truth — truth  centralised,  unified, 
focussed — the  less,  it  seemed  to  him,  he  found 
it,  and  the  more  dignity  and  grandeur  ani 
charity  he  felt  resided  in  the  wide  creed  cf 
Universalism. 

Durino;  this  time  he  did  not  neoiect  what 
1  suppose  may  be  called  secular  life.  He 
attended  all  such  science-classes  as  he  had 
time  for ;  and  being  naturally  quick  in  study, 
he  picked  up  a  vast  deal  of  knowledge  in  a 


78  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

very  sliort  time ;  lie  interested  himself  in 
politics,  in  current  social  questions,  specially 
tliose  relating  to  labour  and  capital,  and  in 
the  condition  of  the  poor.  This,  above  all, 
was  his  main  subject ;  and  perhaps  more 
than  any  thing  else,  the  fact  that  all  the 
sects  and  denominations  he  had  searched 
into  accepted  the  class  di^dsions  of  the  pre- 
sent time  as  final,  and  thought  that  it  was 
enough  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor — 
that  is,  to  preach  to  them  submission  and 
patience,  and  belief  that  Christ  was  God, 
and  then  leave  them  to  their  physical 
wretchedness  and  social  degradation  as  to 
things  that  must  be,  and  with  which  they 
must  make  themselves  content — had  turned 
him  from  communion  with  them,  one  and 
all.  It  was  such  a  comfortable  way  of  get- 
ting rid  of  a  difficulty,  he  used  to  say.     It 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  79 

was  offering  a  potential  heaven  as  a  bribe  to 
induce  the  starving  and  the  down-trodden 
to  be  patient  with  their  sufferings,  and  sub- 
missive to  the  unjust  tyranny  of  circum- 
stances. It  was  shirking  the  question  of 
Christian  equality  altogether;  and  nullifying 
the  whole  teaching  and  tendency  of  Christ's 
life. 

So  his  time  passed,  and  his  thoughts  went 
more  and  more  into  the  rationalistic  channel ; 
till  at  last  one  evening,  when  I  and  other  of 
his  friends  were  sitting  with  him,  he  made 
his  declaration. 

"  Friends,"  he  said,  "  I  have  at  last  cleared 
my  mind  and  come  to  a  Belief.  I  have 
proved  to  myself  the  sole  meaning  of  Christ: 
it  is  Humanity.  I  relinquish  the  miracles, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  the  doc- 
trine   of   the   Divinity  of  Jesus,   and    the 


8o  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

Tinelastic  finality  of  His  knowledge.  He 
was  the  product  of  His  time ;  and  if  He 
went  beyond  it  in  some  things,  He  was 
only  abreast  of  it  in  others.  His  views  of 
human  life  were  oriental ;  His  images  are 
drawn  from  the  autocratic  despotism  of  the 
great  and  the  slavish  submission  of  the 
humble,  and  there  is  never  a  word  of  repro- 
bation of  these  conditions,  as  conditions,  only 
of  the  individuals  according  to  their  desert. 
He  did  His  best  to  remedy  that  injustice,  so 
far  as  there  might  be  solace  in  thought,  by 
proclaiming  the  spiritual  equality  of  all  men, 
and  the  greater  value  of  worth  than  status  ; 
but  He  left  the  social  question  where  he  found 
it — paying  tribute  even  to  Csesar  without  re- 
luctance— His  mind  not  being  ripe  to  accept 
the  idea  of  a  radical  revolution,  and  His  hands 
not  strong  enough  to  accomplish  it,  if  even 


rOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  8i^. 

He  liad  imamned  it.    But  neither  He  nor  His 

o 

disciples  imagined  more  than  the  communism 
of  their  own  sect ;  they  did  not  touch  the 
throne  of  Caesar,  or  the  power  of  the  heredi- 
tary irresponsible  Lord.  Their  communism 
never  aimed  at  the  equalization  of  classes 
throughout  all  society.  Hence,  I  cannot 
accept  the  beginning  of  Christian  politics  as 
final,  but  hold  that  we  have  to  carry  on  the 
work  under  different  forms.  The  modern 
Christ  would  be  a  politician.  His  aim  would 
be  to  raise  the  whole  platform  of  society,  he 
would  not  try  to  make  the  poor  contented 
with  a  lot  in  which  they  cannot  be  much 
better  than  savages  or  brutes.  He  would 
work  at  the  destruction  of  caste,  which  is 
the  vice  at  the  root  of  all  our  creeds  and  insti- 
tutions. He  would  not  content  himself  with 
denouncing  sin  as  merely  spiritual  evil ;  he 


82  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

would  go  into  its  economic  causes,  and  destroy 
the  flower  by  cutting  at  the  roots — poverty 
and  ignorance.  He  would  accept  the  truths 
of  science,  and  he  would  teach  that  a  man 
saves  his  own  soul  best  by  heljDing  his  neigh- 
bour. That,  indeed.  He  did  teach  ;  and  that 
is  the  one  solid  foothold  I  have.  Friends, 
Christianity  according  to  Christ  is  the  creed 
of  human  progress,  not  that  of  resignation 
to  the  avoidable  miseries  of  class ;  it  is 
the  confession  that  society  is  elastic,  and 
that  no  social  arrangements  are  final ;  that 
morals  themselves  are  only  experimental, 
and  that  no  laws  are  divine — that  is,  absolute 
and  unchangeable  by  circumstance.  It  is 
the  doctrine  of  evolution,  of  growth ;  and 
just  as  Christ  was  the  starting-point  of  a  new 
era  of  theological  thought,  so  is  the  present 
the  starting-point  of  a  new  era  of  social  fact. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  %i 

Let  us  then  strip  our  Christianity  of  all 
the  mythology,  the  fetichism  that  has  grown 
about  it.  Let  us  abandon  the  idolatry  with 
which  we  have  obscured  the  meaning  of  the 
Life ;  let  us  go  back  to  the  Man,  and  carry 
on  His  work  in  its  essential  spirit  in  the 
direction  suited  to  our  times  and  social  con- 
ditions. Those  of  you  who  still  clmg  to  the 
mystical  aspect  of  the  creed,  and  who  prefer 
to  worship  the  God  rather  than  imitate  the 
Man,  must  here  part  company  with  me.  You 
know  that,  as  a  youth,  I  went  deep  into  the 
life  of  prayer  and  faith ;  as  a  man,  I  have 
come  out  into  the  upper  air  of  action ; 
into  the  understanding  that  Christianity  is 
not  a  creed  as  dogmatised  by  churches, 
but  an  organization  having  politics  for  its 
means  and  the  equalization  of  classes  as  its 
end.     It  is  Communism.     Friends  !  the  doc- 

G  2 


84  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

trine  I  have  chosen  for  myself  is  Christian 
Communism — and  my  aim  will  be,  the  Life 
after  Christ  in  the  service  of  humanity, 
■without  distinction  of  persons  or  morals. 
The  Man  Jesus  is  my  master,  and  by  His 
example  I  will  walk." 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  85 


CHAPTER  V. 


These  tlien  were  the  stao^es  througli 
whicli  Joshua's  mind  had  passed ;  first, 
literal  acceptance  of  the  Word,  which  as 
he  went  on  he  found  to  be  against  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  which  therefore  he 
relegated  to  the  ignorance  and  exagge- 
ration of  the  time  in  which  it  was 
written ;  next,  the  authority  of  the  Church 
with  its  increment  of  symbolism  and  tra- 
dition, by  which  the  Humanity  of  Jesus  is 
resolved  into  a  mystical  Appearance  of 
Di^^nity,  and  his  Life  made  no  longer  an 
example  for  men  to  follow  but  a  dogma  to 


86  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

be  worshipped  under  emblems  ;  and  now  tbe 
frank  acceptance  of  that  Humanity  alone, 
of  tlie  Man  as  a  teacher,  and  of  the  Life 
as  an  example  to  be  faithfully  followed  ; 
more  especially  in  its  tenderness  to  sinners 
and  its  brotherhood  with  the  poor  and  out- 
cast. It  was  an  abandonment  of  the  dead 
mystical  for  the  living  real ;  but  I  doubt  if 
any  single  sect  among  all  the  hundreds  into 
which  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  is  shredded, 
would  have  recognised  him  as  a  brother 
Christian,  or  have  believed  that  Christ  would 
do  aught  else  to  him  in  the  Last  Day  but 
deny  him  as  a  ''  thief  and  a  robber." 

And  now  Joshua  began  to  carry  out  his 
programme  of  life  wdth  more  fixed  lines. 
He  disdained  nothing  that  could  advance 
him  in  knowledge  and  intellectual  strength  : 
and  I  have  often  heard  him   say  that  the 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  87 

great  marvels  of  science,  such  as  were  shown 
us  in  the  lectures  to  workiug  men  that  we 
attended,  stirred  his  soul  to  religious  feeling 
just  like  the  passion  of  prayer.  And  what 
he  knew  and  valued  for  himself,  that  he  was 
eager  to  impart  to  others.  And  it  was  this 
which  made  him  begin  his  "  night  school," 
where  he  got  together  all  who  would  come, 
and  tried  to  interest  them  in  some  of  the 
more  taking  *'  fairy  tales  of  science,"  as  well 
as  to  teach  them  a  few  homely  truths  in 
the  way  of  cleanliness,  health,  good  cooking, 
and  the  like  ;  with  interludes,  so  to  speak, 
of  lessons  in  morality;  winding  up  with  a  few 
simple  prayers  and  an  attempt  to  make  his 
hearers  feel  the  Presence  and  the  Power  of 
God.  All  came  to  this  meeting  who  would ; 
thieves  and  drunkards,  lost  women  and  gut- 
ter-children— no  matter  who  :   there  was  a 


88  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

kindly  welcome  for  all  ;  no  preaching  at 
them  for  their  sins ;  no  expression  of 
spiritual  or  moral  superiority,  but  just  the 
great  loving  equality  which  does  the  de- 
graded so  much  good,  and  gives  them,  if 
only  for  a  moment,  a  flash  of  natural  self- 
respect  and  the  glorious  sense  of  inclusion 
and  brotherhood.  So  that  you  see  his  life 
was  not  a  meagre  one ;  and  while  he  blessed 
others  so  far  as  his  power  went,  he  grew 
daily  riper  in  his  own  thoughts,  and  fuller 
of  knowledge,  and  more  clear  as  to  what  he 
meant. 

We  were  very  poor  all  this  time  :  that  of 
course  we  understood  we  must  be.  We  were 
accustomed  to  it,  and  would  have  been  more 
embarrassed  with  a  lot  of  surplus  money  to 
spend,  if  we  had  had  to  spend  it  on  ourselves, 
than  we  were  to  make  the  best  of  the  little  we 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  89 

possessed.  Bat  we  did  look  to  live  like 
decent  men,  and  not  like  savages.  And  we 
desired  tke  same  for  our  order.  Yet  how 
was  that  possible  in  the  conditions  in  which 
we  found  ourselves  ?  And  we  were  only 
two  out  of  thousands. 

We  lodged  in  a  stifling  court,  Church- 
court,  wdiere  every  room  was  filled  as  if 
cubic  inches  were  gold,  as  indeed  they  are 
to  London  house-owners,  if  human  life  is 
but  dross.  Children  swarmed  like  rabbits  in 
ev.ery  house,  and  died  like  sheep  with  the 
rot.  It  was  sore  to  see  them,  poor  little, 
pale,  stunted,  half-naked  creatures,  playing 
about  the  foul  uncleansed  pavement  of  the 
court,  from  the  reeking  gutter  of  which 
they  picked  up  apple-parings,  potato-peel- 
ings, fish-heads,  and  the  like,  which  I  have 
seen  them  many  a  time  wipe  on  their  rags 


90  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

and  eat.  "The  broncMtis "  it  was  called 
that  sent  so  many  of  them  to  the  hospital 
and  the  graveyard,  but  the  real  word  was 
poverty  :  poverty  in  everything  ;  in  food,  in 
clothing,  in  care,  in  lodging.  It  made  one's 
heart  ache  to  see  them — them  and  their 
parents  too  :  the  hopeless  misery  of  their 
lives  and  the  moral  degradation  following. 
And  it  made  one  think  with  deep  amazement 
of  what  the  wisdom  of  that  nation  could  be 
which  leaves  its  riches  to  rot  in  the  gutter 
for  want  of  looking  after  and  tending; 
not  to  speak  of  the  religion,  which  contents 
itself  with  building  churches,  and  endowing 
foreign  and  colonial  bishoprics,  while  its 
own  immortal  souls  perish  for  lack  of  the 
Bread  of  Life  squandered  in  baskets  full  on 
the  altars  to  Baal !  Where  to  find  the  issue  \ 
How  to  fill  up  the  great  chasm  between  the 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  91 

rich  and  the  poor,  the  virtuous  and  the 
vicious,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant,  the 
civihsed  and  the  brutish  ? 

"  There  is  only  one  way  out  of  it,"  said 
a  noted  M.P.  to  Joshua  one  day,  a  great 
political  economist  and  a  strict  Malthusian  : 
"  abstinence  ;  if  you  wish  to  see  the  poor 
raised  you  must  lighten  the  labour  market 
by  bringing  fewer  labourers  into  it.  That 
is  the  first  necessity.  Leave  off  having 
children,  live  frugally,  and  put  by  money, 
and  as  many  of  3^ou  can,  emigrate." 

"  Is  this  not  omitting  one  important 
factor  from  your  calculations,  sir  ? "  said 
Joshua. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  ^'  asked  Mr. . 

"  Merely  the  human  nature  there  is  in 
humanity,"  said  Joshua.  "  Do  you  think 
the  poor  have  no  instincts  ?     Is  not  a  wife 


92  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

or  a  husband,  a  home  where  there  are  little 
children,  sometimes  a  day's  pleasure,  and 
the  old  family  ties  of  father  and  mother 
and  brothers  and  sisters — are  not  all  these 
as  dear  to  them  as  to  the  rich  ?  Why 
should  they  be  required  to  forego  these  that 
the  rich  may  not  be  called  upon  to  share  ? " 

"  Would  you  destroy  the  existing  order  of 
society  ?  "  said  the  M.P.  sternly. 

"  Destroy  it  ?  aye !  root  and  branch,  if 
need  be  !  In  no  civilised  community — not 
to  speak  of  a  Christian  one,  if  Christianity 
meant  anything — ought  there  to  be  such 
places  as  Belgrave-square  and  Church-court.  . 
Keep  your  Belgrave-square  by  all  means, 
but  let  the  Church-courts  be  made  at  least 
wliolesome  and  decent." 

"You   have   the   remedy    in    your    own 
hands,"  said  the  ]\r.P.       "  So  long   as  you 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  93 

will  many  on  nothing,  spend  all  you 
get,  and  breed  paupers,  paupers  you  must 
remain,  wallowing  in  filth  and  wretchedness. 
The  whole  question  is  as  much  a  matter  of 
exact  science  as  any  other  mathematical 
problem ;  and  you  are  to  blame,  Davidson, 
that  you  do  not  abandon  your  foolish 
rant  about  Christian  charity  and  human 
rights,  and  apply  yourself  to  the  only  way 
out  of  the  difficulty — the  science  of  Political 

Economy." 

Joshua  smiled  sadly.    "  Political  Economy 

is  not  quite  human  enough  for  us,  sir,"  he  said. 

"  It  rests  too  on  the  basis  of  these  very  existing 

conditions  of  society  that  I  do  not  care  for ; 

I  would  rather  see  something  more  radical, 

going  straight  to  the  root  of  the  evil." 

"  You  are  an  enthusiast,"  said  the  M.  P. 

coldly.  ''  I  tell  you  again,  Political  Economy 


94  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

does  go  to  the  root  of  tlie  evil ;  and  the 
only  thing  that  does/' 

*'Then  Christianity  is  wrong/'  said  Joshua. 

And  the  M.P.  was  silent.  He  had  never 
confessed  himself  on  the  subject  of  religion, 
and  never  would.  Not  his  most  intimate 
friends  knew  what  he  believed  or  what  he 
did  not  believe.  All  that  the  world  saw 
was  that  he  went  to  church,  made  the 
orthodox  bow  at  the  Name  in  the  Creed, 
and  wrote  books  and  pamphlets  full  of  anti- 
Christian,  hard-headed  doctrines,  without 
ever  once  alluding  to  religious  dogma. 
When  he  was  called  an  infidel  by  his  foes 
he  hit  out  savagely,  and  said,  "Prove  it.'' 
And  no  man  could  :  only  every  man  felt 
that  his  whole  teaching,  from  first  to  last, 
was  absolutely  devoid  of  all  Christian  feel- 
ing; that  pity,   charity,   warmth,   and  love 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  95 

were  as  far  from  him  as  heaven  is  from  the 
earth  ;  and  that  he  squared  the  accounts  of 
humanity  with  the  most  sublime  uncon- 
sciousness that  such  disturbing  elements  as 
passions  or  the  sentiment  of  rights  existed 
to  upset  his  sums  and  prove  his  sociology 
for  the  present  at  least  imperfect. 

And  the  result  of  the  conversation  was, 
that  Mr. ,  the  M.P.,  who  is  a  worthy- 
man,  upright  and  honourable,  but  practically 
one-sided  because  so  utterly  undisturbed  by 
weakness  or  passions  of  any  kind,  and  there- 
fore unable  to  allow  for  them  in  another,  de- 
nounced Joshua  as  a  mischievous  ag-itator 
and  an  ignorant  fanatic,  and  warned  those 
of  us  whom  he  knew  to  beware  of  him. 
Yet  Mr. was  as  hearty  as  Joshua  him- 
self in  his  desire  to  see  the  regeneration  of 
the  working  class :  but  as  Joshua  said,  and  I 


96  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

thought  said  well  too  ;  "  He  advocates  our 
making  ourselves  so  slender  that  we  can 
slip  through  our  bands  and  fetters,  while  I 
hold  that  we  should  make  ourselves  strong 
enough  to  force  those  who  hold  the  fastenings 
to  loosen  them.  "We  both  mean  the  same 
thing  in  the  end,  liberty  and  social  advance- 
ment ;  but  we  differ  as  to  the  means/' 

Our  court  was  one  of  just  ordinary  moral 
character,  neither  strictly  respectable  nor 
the  reverse.  AVe  had  all  sorts ;  from  the 
man  who  would  harbour  a  pal  in  trouble  and 
stow  away  swag  not  honestly  come  by  till 
the  police  scent  grew  cold,  to  the  decent 
workman  doing  his  best  to  be  respectable, 
and  to  keep  his  girls  pure  and  his  boys 
honest  ;  from  the  hard  working- woman 
slaving  night  and  day  to  make  her  two  poor 
ends  meet,  to  the  idle  slattern  who  was  drunk 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  97 

half  her  time,  and  begged  in  the  streets  the 
other  half;  from  the  fond  mother  with  her 
pretty  pride  in  Sunday  frocks  or  bits  of 
coloured  bows,  to  the  husbandless  wench 
whose  half-starved  children,  as  naked  as 
crows  and  nearly  as  black,  were  knocked 
about  as  if  they  were  street  dogs,  and  on  the 
highway  to  the  gallows  through  neglect; 
from  the  virtuous  spinster  proud  of  her  char- 
acter and  intolerant  of  looseness,  to  the  poor 
flaunting  girl  who  got  her  living  in  the 
streets,  leastwise  eked  out  her  scanty  wages 
from  slopwork  and  the  like  by  prostitution, 
more  or  less  avowed. 

One  of  these  girls  lived  just  opposite 
to  us.  Her  name  was  Mary  Prinsep. 
We  had  seen  her  at  a  music-hall  we  went 
to  by  times :  for  Joshua  was  not  one 
of   those    prudes    who    are    afraid    of   ap- 


98  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

pearances,  and  as  he  wanted  to  learn  tne 
world  on  all  sides  he  went  to  all  sorts  of 
places  and  talked  to  all  sorts  of  people — to 
these  poor  girls,  as  well  as  to  any  one  else, 
and  just  as  he  would  to  any  one  else  ;  seek- 
ing to  know  the  causes  of  things,  and  why 
they  went  on  to  the  streets,  and  if  they 
would  keep  out  of  them  if  they  could,  and 
so  on. 

Any  one  who  knows  anything  about  us 
working  men  as  we  are  and  not  by  fancy 
portraits,  knows  the  profound  contempt,  and 
more,  in  which  as  a  class  we  hold  the  pro- 
fessed prostitute,  or  the  woman  of  our  own 
homes  who  lets  herself  be  seduced  by  a  gen- 
tleman. A  base  child — nay,  more  than  one, 
and  by  different  fathers  too — if  by  men  of 
our  own  class  is  not  so  unpardonable  an 
offence.     We  think  it  a  pity,  of  course    and 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  99 

we  would  rather  not  have  it  happen  to  our 
daughters  and  sisters ;  but  we  get  over  it ; 
and  the  women  not  unfrequently  marry,  and 
marry  well,  when  the  thing  has  blown  by  a 
little.  But  the  poor,  painted,  bedizened 
wreck  of  womanhood  who  goes  about  the 
streets  at  the  West-end,  and  sells  herself  to 
club-gentlemen  and  the  like,  is  of  all  things 
that  of  which  we  have  the  most  abhorrence. 
I  don't  pretend  to  explain  it,  and  very  likely 
it  is  only  a  matter  of  class  jealousy  when  all 
is  said  and  done  ;  but  I  mention  it  as  a  kind 
of  introduction  to  what  I  have  to  say  of 
Mary  Prinsep.  I  want  it  to  be  seen  that  it 
was  no  indifferentism  to  her  trade  which  ac- 
tuated Joshua ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  it 
was  the  large  and  generous  humanity  in  him 
which  made  him  able  to  accept  even  a  street- 
walker as  his  sister  and  his  friend. 

H  2 


loo  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

Mary  was  very  young  and  very  ignorant. 
She  had  been  brought  up  any  how,  and  had 
been  neglected  and  untaught  from  the  be- 
guming.  There  was  no  romantic  history 
attached  to  her.  She  was  no  "  soiled  dove  '' 
whose  feathers  had  once  been  white  and 
shiningr  •  she  was  the  dauo^hter  of  a  dram- 
drinking  charwoman,  sent  out  to  mind 
children  when  quite  a  child  herself,  brought 
up  to  no  trade,  and  knowing  nothing  now 
but  the  streets  and  the  music-halls.  But 
she  had  so  much  to  the  good,  that  she  did 
not  drink — at  least  not  much — they  all  drink 
some  ;  and  she  had  never  been  in  trouble  or 
locked  up.  She  was  merely  one  of  the 
abandoned — abandoned  by  society  from  her 
birth,  and  left  to  sink  or  swim  in  the  foul 
streams  of  the  metropolis  as  she  best  could. 
She  had  been  picked  up  by  a  gentleman  a 


JOSH  UA    DA  V ID  SON.  i  o  i 

few  years  ago  ^Yhen  she  was  about  fifteen ; 
and  he  had  taught  her  a  good  deal  Loth  of 
refinement  and  womanly  ways.  She  had 
been  grateful  to  him  at  the  time,  but  she 
scarcely  loved  him.  He  was  older  than  her- 
self;  in  fact,  an  old  man  comparatively  ; 
married,  with  grown-up  daughters  and  sons, 
a  churchwarden,  and  a  fine  Christian  gentle- 
man living  out  at  Bays  water  in  the  very 
odour  of  class  respectibility,  But  he  had  an 
eye  for  pretty  girls ;  and  he  had  placed  Mary 
in  a  little  house  at  Bow,  where,  as  I  said, 
she  had  learned  some  things  that  were 
useful  to  her,  being  a  girl  of  great  natural 
quickness,  and,  if  she  had  had  fair  play,  of 
refined  taste  and  good  disposition.  In  time 
he  got  tired  of  her.  Such  men  always  do  : 
for  what  was  there  in  an  ignorant  girl  like 
that  to  keep  him  when  he  had  had  enough  of 


I02  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

her  beauty  ?  So,  making  her  a  handsome  pre- 
sent— oh !  he  behaved  to  her  quite  hand- 
somely ! — he  parted  with  her,  and  Mary  had 
to  tm^n  out  into  the  streets  with  a  ruined 
character  and  a  taste  for  good  living.  She 
had  learned  however,  durino;  her  two  or  three 
years  of  "protection/'  to  keep  herself  and 
her  place  tidy,  and  to  do  needlework  after  a 
fashion,  but  not  sufficiently  ay  ell  to  keep  her. 
Twelve  hours  a  day  of  slop-work  would  not 
feed,  clothe,  and  lodge  her ;  flower-selling 
would  not ;  but  her  youth  and  good  looks 
would.  So  she  sold  them,  as  all  she  had  to 
sell ;  and  got  bread  of  the  dcAdl's  baking  be- 
cause she  could  not  get  it  any  way  else. 

It  was  a  bad  life;  and  she  felt  it  was.  And 
it  was  a  hard  life  too.  Those  who  see  these 
girls  only  in  their  show-hours,  dressed  in  the 
height  of   the  fashion    and  queening  it  at 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  103 

night-houses  and  the  like,  have  no  idea  of 
the  wretchedness  of  the  reality  for  the  poorer 
kind ;  for  there  are  classes  even  here.  No 
wonder  they  take  to  drink,  poor  souls,  suf- 
fering as  they  do — merciful  Heaven,  how 
they  do  suffer !  And  how  some  of  them 
loathe  their  lives  as  they  go  on^  and  go 
do^^^n,  and  wish  they  had  died  before  they 
took  up  the  trade !  Not  that  I  say  for 
an  instant  they  go  moaning  about  in  eternal 
agonies  of  remorse  or  horror — human  na- 
ture does  not  live  at  such  high  pressure  ;  but 
a  lot  of  them  do  hate  their  business  never- 
theless, when  the  drink  is  not  in  them  and 
their  vanity  is  not  flattered 

But — virtuous  women  will  start  at  this — 
they  look  on  themselves,  like  all  the  poor,  as 
martyrs  to  society.  They  think  that,  as 
men  and  things  are,  they  must  be ;  that  they 


104  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

make  the  virtuous  wife,  the  chaste  maiden, 
possible.  In  their  blind  way  they  are 
vaguely  conscious  that  the  root  of  this  fine 
flower  of  western  civilisation,  the  rich  mono- 
gamous Christian  home,  is  planted  in  the  filth 
of  prostitution,  and  that  to  them  is  owing  the 
"  self-restraint,"  so  much  admired  in  gentle- 
men who  do  not  marry  until  they  can  afibrd 
to  have  a  family,  and  so  often  ofi'ered  as  an 
example  to  us  working  men  who  love 
honestly  one  of  our  own  sort,  and  do  not  as 
a  rule  go  among  these  girls.  And  the  more 
thoughtful  of  them,  conscious  of  their  eco- 
nomic uses,  resent  the  opprobrium  dealt  out 
to  them,  and  pity  themselves  angrily  as  vic- 
tims rather  than  criminals,  the  scapegoats 
not  the  pollutors  of  society. 

To  be  sure,  they  do  not  fret  at  the  scorn  of 
the  great  ladies  whom  they  help  to  keep 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  105 

virtuous,  for  they  have  their  compensations. 
Fine  ladies  think  that  because  they  would 
not  brush  skirts  with  a  prostitute,  therefore 
no  one  will,  and  that  all  life  shows  them  the 
same  aspect  of  repulsion  and  horror.  It  is 
nothino;  of  the  kind.  Decent  women  of 
the  poorer  class,  consort  with  them,  if  not 
cordially  yet  humanely;  then  they  have 
friends  of  their  own  sort,  and  many  of 
them ;  and  we  know  that  a  multitude  of  evil 
doers  makes  the  evil  done  seem  light  to  each. 
The  gentlemen  who  go  with  them  are  often 
kind  and  playful,  and  no  more  brutal  than 
most  men  are  to  most  women  outside  the 
artificial  restraints  of  society.  Sometimes, 
of  course,  they  are  vile  enough ;  but  these 
are  the  men  who  would  be  brutal  to  their 
own  lady-wives  and  daughters.  So  that  the 
poor  Girls,  as  they  call  themselves,   are  not 


io6  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

quite  shut  out  from  all  liunian  sympathy 
like  the  lepers  of  old  —  though  indeed 
the  circle  is  terribly  narrowed  !  And 
though  many  of  them  have  fits  of  self- 
loathino^  and  reg^ret,  others  take  matters 
more  coolly,  and  look  on  their  profession  as 
a  legitimate  trade,  as  lawful  as  a  publican's 
w^ho  sells  the  gin  that  robs  a  man's  family 
of  bread,  and  makes  him  perhaps  a  murderer 
as  well  as  a  madman. 

Mary  Prinsep  was  what  the  world  calls 
lost — a  bad  girl — a  castaway — but  she  might 
have  been  a  saint  for  the  natural  virtue  that 
was  in  her.  I  have  reason  to  speak  well  of 
her,  for  to  her  we  owe  the  life  of  Joshua. 

Soon  after  w^e  came  to  know  her,  Joshua 
fell  ill  in  our  wretched  lodmns^s  Avhere  we 
lived  and  did  for  ourselves.  He  did  not  like 
to  go  to  the  hospital,  nor  did   I   like  it  for 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  107 

liim.  We  both  had  a  strong  feeling  against 
accepting  the  charity  of  society ;  so  I  said  he 
should  not  go,  and  that  I  would  work  harder 
for  him  and  myself  too.  But  by  my  harder 
work  —  overtime,  and  the  like  —  I  was 
obliged  to  leave  him  for  twelve  hours  and 
more  at  a  stretch ;  and  Mary  Prinsep,  whose 
"friend''  had  just  left  her  to  go  into  a 
west-end  "  dress-house,"  poor  wench  !  came 
over  and  nursed  him,  and  kept  him  alive. 

She  it  was  who  made  up  the  fire, 
cooked  his  broths  and  messes,  gave  him 
his  medicine,  washed  his  clothes,  and 
kept  him  clean  and  comfortable.  And 
when  I  came  home  from  work,  and  found 
her  there,  with  everything  arranged  so  nicely 
and  as  only  a  woman  can — Joshua's  bed 
made  and  him  settled  for  the  night,  and  my 
own  supper  ready,  and  hot  water  for  cleaning 


io8  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

myself — for  we  had  but  one  room  between 
us — as  one  of  tlie  great  family  of  the  frail, 
the  suffering,  I  could  not  feel  anything  like 
virtuous  horror  of  her.  She  was  our  sister — 
our  sister  of  sorrow,  of  poverty,  of  affliction. 
Gladly  would  Joshua  have  lifted  her  out 
of  her  life  into  something  purer  and  nobler. 
He  was  so  poor  himself  with  all  he  did  and 
gave  away,  he  had  much  ado  to  live  on  the 
leavings  ;  and  as  for  marrying,  that  was  as 
unlikely  as  murder !  So  that  he  could 
neither  put  her  into  any  way  of  business 
independently,  nor  give  her  a  home  that  the 
world  would  not  misjudge.  We  did  what 
we  could,  however.  I  say  i^e  intentionally, 
as  it  makes  the  whole  thing  clear  to  those 
who  are  candid  enough  not  to  wilfully  mis- 
understand. We  helped  her  all  we  could, 
and   she   helped  us.      We    worked    for  her 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  109 

food,  while  she  gave  us  her  time  and  did 
our  chores.  And  so  in  this  way  we  made  it 
unnecessary  for  her  to  continue  her  sad  trade. 

This  got  us  the  name  of  associating  with 
bad  women ;  for  it  was  said  that  we  lived 
partly  on  her  earnings ;  and  made  us  to  be 
shyly  looked  on  by  our  shopmates.  But 
Joshua's  mind  was  set  to  do  the  thing  that 
is  right ;  and  what  men  said  against  him, 
not  understanding  facts  or  motives,  hurt 
him  no  more  than  that  dogs  should  bark 
at  shadows.  That  which  is,  not  that  which 
seems,  nor  what  folks  choose  to  say,  was 
what  he  lived  for  ;  and  Mary  Prinsep 
was  only  a  text  and  an  occasion,  like 
others. 

And  even  when,  one  day,  the  men  fairly 
hooted  him  down  and  hustled  him  into  the 
street,    and   me    along    with    him,    because 


no  THE     TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

when  lie  was  chaffed  savagely  about  "  his 
girl "  he  answered  them  mildly  enough ; 
"  Mates,  did  our  great  Master  receive  Mary 
Magdalene  and  all  sinners,  or  did  He  not  ? 
And  if  He  did — as  you  may  find  for  your- 
selves— am  I  too  pure  to  help  them  ?  " — he 
only  said  to  me,  wiping  the  mud  from  his 
torn  coat ;  "  You  are  not  afraid,  John  ? 
You  '11  go  on  the  right  way,  whatever  comes 
of  it  ?  " — and  not  a  word  even  of  impatience 
against  those  who  had  misused  us,  calling 
us  "  canters,"  *'  white-livered  hypocrites," 
and  worse  words  still.  No,  I  was  not  afraid, 
I  said.  I  would  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  him  through  it  all ;  and  where  he  led, 
there  would  I  follow,  if  we  sunk  up  to  our 
very  necks  in  the  slough  of  the  world's 
reproach.     And  we  were  not  far  ofi". 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  m 


CHAPTER  YI. 


Among  the  rest  of  the  doubtful  characters 
with  which  our  court  abounded,  was  one  Joe 
Traill,  who  had  been  in  prison  many  a  time 
for  petty  larceny  and  the  like,  but  who,  the 
last  time  he  was  had  up,  was  convicted  of 
burglary.  However,  he  was  out  now  on  a 
ticket-of-leave,  and  fast  going  the  way  to 
get  it  cancelled,  with  a  new  score  to  the 
back  of  it.  Respectability  and  the  police 
were  bent  on  elbowing  poor  Joe  into  the  mire, 
which  was  only  too  much  his  natural  ele- 
ment. He  had  been  crotch  deep  in  the  mud 
from  the  earliest ;  a  gutter  child,  in  whose 


112  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

very  blood  ran  tlie  hereditary  taint ;  a  thief, 
the  son  of  thieves,  the  grandson  of  thieves ; 
a  thing  of  mud  from  head  to  heel,  inside 
and  out ;  dirty,  dissipated,  shiftless,  and 
with  no  more  moral  principle  in  him  than 
he  had  of  education.  His  only  morality 
indeed,  was  his  cleverness  in  being  able  to 
break  the  law  without  being  found  out ;  and 
when  he  was  most  down  on  his  luck,  he  was 
disposed  to  think  most  meanly  of  himself 

He  was  one  of  those  who  stink  in  the 
nostrils  of  cleanly,  civilised  society,  and  who 
are  its  shame  and  secret  sore.  And  cleanly, 
civilised  society,  not  being  able  to  make  a 
good  job  of  him  as  he  stood,  thrust  him  out 
of  its  sight,  and  tried  to  forget  him  behind 
the  prison  grating.  There  was  no  place  for 
Joe  in  this  great  world  of  ours.  There  was 
no  work  for  him  to  do,  because  he  could  do 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  113 

none  requiring  any  of  the  deftness  got  by 
practice  ;  and  if  by  chance  he  got  a  job  any- 
where, he  lost  it  mysteriously  in  a  day  or 
so;  and,  double  as  he  might,  he  found  the 
dogs  of  detection  too  sharp  for  him. 

So  he  said  to  Joshua  one  night  in  his 
blithe  way — poor  Joe  !  he  had  not  fibre 
enough  in  him  to  take  even  his  misfortunes 
seriously  ! — that  there  was  nothing  for  him 
but  the  old  line  along  with  his  pals,  making 
a  running  fight  of  it,  now  up  now  down,  as 
his  luck  went. 

"  We  11  see  if  something  better  won't  turn 
up,"  said  Joshua.  "  Biargiary's  a  \)ad  trade, 
Joe/' 

"  Only  one  Fve  got  at  my  fingers'  ends, 
governor,"  laughed  the  thief ;  ''  and  starva- 
tion is  a  worse  go  than  quod." 

'*  Well,  till  you've  learned  a  better,  share 


114  THE    TRUE    HIS70RY    OF 

with  us,"    said  Josliua.      "If  we   have  no 

wddow's  cruse "  "  Blowed  if  I  know  what 

that  means  !  "  put  in  Joe,  "  — we  have  what 
does  as  well,"  continued  Joshua ;  "  and  it's 
better  for  four  to  go  short  than  for  one  to  be 
rationed  at  the  hulks." 

So  now  our  little  home  circle  was  in- 
creased by  one  more ;  and  we  had  added  a 
burglar  to  the  prostitute. 

"  It  is  what  Christ  would  have  done/' 
said  Joshua,  when  he  was  remonstrated  with. 
"  He  lived  among  the  lepers  whom  no  man 
would  touch,  and  whose  very  presence  was 
pollution.  But  he  healed  some  among  them ; 
and  so  will  I  these." 

But  the  police  did  not  see  it.  They  do 
not  understand  practical  Christianity  in 
Scotland-yard,  save  as  a  generous  kind  of 
fad  or  pastime  in  a  swell  with  more  money 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  115 

than  brains,  and  a  lot  of 'idle  time  on  his 
hands.     And  then  they  laugh  at  it  behind 
backs,    and   ridicule   him   for   being   green. 
But  when  it  came  to  a  poor  journeyman  car- 
penter housing  a  jail-bird,   and  consorting 
with  bad  characters  daily,  they  had  but  one 
conclusion  to   come  to — the   carpenter  was 
no  better   than  his   company.      Wherefore, 
"  from  information  received,"  Joshua  and  I, 
who  had  long  been  looked  on  askance  by 
our  mates  as  I  said,  were  called  up  before 
the  master,  and  had  our  dismissal  from  the 
shop.     His  other  men,  he  said,  objected  to 
us ;  and,  by  the  Lord,  from  all  he  had  been 
told  he   did  not   wonder   at   it !     And   he 
gave  us  a  caution — kindly  meant,  if  harshly 
said — not  to  keep  such  company  as  we  did, 
if  we  wanted  to  be  respected  by  master  or 
mate,  and    to   remember  that   "  birds  of  a 


2 


ii6  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

feather  flock  together,"  and  if  we  chose  such 
birds  as  he  was  told  we  did,  we  could  look 
for  nothing  else  than  to  be  classed  along 
with  them.  On  Avhich  he  paid  us  our  week's 
wages,  and  we  found  ourselves  next  thing  to 
penniless  in  the  wilds  of  London. 

But  Joshua  was  undisturbed.  He  told 
both  Joe  and  Mary,  on  the  evening  we  were 
discharged,  that  he  would  not  forsake  them 
come  what  might.  It  should  still  be  share 
and  share  alike ;  only  let  them  be  of  good 
courage  and  a  clean  conscience,  and  things 
would  go  well.  How,  nobody  knew ;  but 
this  is  what  he  said,  and  promised. 

And  Mary,  looking  up  into  his  face  with 
a  look  that  made  her  like  an  angel — for  in- 
deed she  was  a  pretty  girl ! — said,  "  If  I 
have  to  starve,  Joshua,  I'll  never  go  back  to 
the   streets   again ! "    and    poor    Joe,    fii'st 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  117 

laiigliing,  and  then  sobbing  like  a  woman, 
said,  "  You'd  have  done  better  to  have 
left  me  to  my  little  game,  governor  1  I've 
brought  you  bad  luck,  you  see;  and  I'm 
no  good,  you  see,  when  you've  done  your 
best !  " 

''Don't  carry  on  like  that,  Joe,"  said 
Joshua.  "  I  shall  have  done  somethino-  if  I 
save  you  both  :   and  I  will." 

I  could  not  help  thinking  that  this  "I 
will,"  said  with  such  manly  courage,  such 
deep  religious  firmness,  was  a  greater  trial 
of  faith  than  the  boyish  exaltation  in  the 
Eocky  Valley  so  many  years  ago  ;  and  that 
to  save  from  the  streets  a  girl  who  was  not 
able  to  do  anything  else  that  the  world 
w-ants,  and  to  put  honesty  and  a  clean  name 
into  such  a  poor  conscienceless  waif  as  Joe, 
were  greater  deeds  than  to  cause  a  stone  to 


ii8  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

move  out  of  its  place  in  the  Name  of  the 
Lord. 

And  all  of  us,  his  old  Cornish  friends  who 
had  come  up  to  be  near  him,  and  some  new 
friends  he  had  made  in  London,  swore  we 
would  never  desert  him,  but  would  stand  by 
him  to  the  last.  For  we  looked  that  he 
should  do  something  in  his  day,  as  I  said 
before — something  to  advance  the  world,  and 
towards  the  solution  of  the  great  questions 
perplexing  society  at  this  moment.  True, 
we  were  a  poor,  moneyless  lot — all  working 
men,  no  science  among  us,  no  political 
power,  no  social  status,  no  political-economy 
knowledge  of  the  right  sort ;  a  handful  of 
enthusiasts  set  out  to  realise  Christ  at  one 
time  by  faith,  and  now  by  works.  But  we 
had  a  soul  among  us — a  leader  in  whom  we 
believed  ;  and  we  trusted  in  ourselves.    And 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  119 

one  by  one  we  all  got  to  work  again  some- 
how, and  floated  in  the  shallow  but  sufficient 
water  to  which  we  were  accustomed.  But 
it  was  a  hard  time ;  and,  bit  by  bit,  every- 
thing we  possessed  passed  over  the  paAvn- 
broker's  counter,  even  to  our  tools.  And 
when  they  went,  it  seemed  as  if  all  hope 
had  gone. 

But  when  we  were  at  the  worst,  and 
things  looked  as  though  they  had  given  over 
all  thought  of  mending — for  we  were  getting 
whersh  and  weak  for  want  of  food — Joshua 
received  a  letter  enclosing  a  five-pound  note, 
"  from  a  friend."  AYe  never  knew  where  it 
came  from,  and  there  was  no  clue  by  which 
we  could  guess.  It  was  very  certain  that 
neither  had  Mary  earned  it  in  the  old  way, 
nor  had  Joe  stolen  it;  but  who  sent  it  re- 
mained for  ever  a  mystery.    I  always  thought 


120  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

that  ]\Iaiy  liacl  had  a  hand  in  it,  and  I  think 
so  to  this  day.  I  believe,  though  I  don't 
know,  that  she  borrowed  it  of  an  artist  to 
wliom  she  went  to  sit  for  a  model ;  for  she 
did  not  make  any  secret  of  this ;  and  that 
she  paid  it  back  honestly  when  we  were 
in  funds  again.  However  that  might  be, 
it  came  at  the  very  nick  of  time ;  and 
immediately  after,  both  Joshua  and  I  got 
the  offer  of  a  job  at  Messrs. in  Curtain- 
road,  which  we  could  not  have  accepted  had 
we  not  had  money  wherewith  to  take  our 
tools  out  of  pawn.  It  was  a  sharp  pinch 
while  it  lasted,  but,  God  be  praised,  it  passed 
without  doing  real  harm  to  any  one.  And 
Joe  and  Mary  still  bided  with  us. 

By  this  time  Joshua's  strange  doings  in 
Church-court  had  got  known  to  some  of  the 
gentlemen  who  practise  philanthropy.     His 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  121 

night-school  for  those  who  would  learn  either 
prayer  or  secular  knowledge  of  him — his 
charity  dinners,  when  he  could  get  enough 
money  together  to  give  them — his  goodness 
to  the  children,  to  the  lost,  to  the  starviuo- — 
all  this  had  got  wind  ;  and  just  as  he  wanted 
help  most,  the  news  of  his  doings  Ijrougbt 
him  the  famous  Mr.  C.  anxious  to  know 
how  a  man  like  him  could  carry  on  charities, 
apparently  on  nothing,  which  cost  himself  a 
large  income  to  keep  up. 

He  was  a  good  man,  this  Mr.  C.  ;  up  to 
his  lights,  none  better ;  but  his  lights  were 
few  and  feeble,  and  he  drew  a  line  hard  and 
fast  where  Joshua  did  not.  His  line  was 
respectability.  He  distinctly  refused  to  aid 
those  who  were  hopeless  paupers,  or  those  of 
bad  repute.  He  would  help  respectable  po- 
verty, and  help  it  substantially  though  always 


122  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

afraid  of  overdoing  it  and  inducing  a  habit 
of  reliance  on  extraneous  aid  ;  but  beasted, 
sliiftless,  drunken  poverty — poverty  that 
lied  and  whined  a,nd  drank  gin  and  got 
relief  from  half-a-clozen  charities  at  once — • 
poverty  that  was  its  own  cause  and  that 
never  stirred  a  hand  to  help  itself — for 
this  he  had  no  pity,  and  to  it  gave  no 
help. 

"  To  encourage  pauperism  "  and  "  to  offer 
a  premium  for  vice  '^  w^ere  the  two  things  of 
which  he  w^as  most  afraid  in  his  dealings 
with  the  poor;  but  he  held  out  a  helping 
hand  gladly  enough  to  the  "  deserving  "  and 
the  "  respectable  "  poor,  and  he  was  a  vrarm 
patron  of  reformatories,  refuges  for  soiled 
doves,  and  the  like  half-punitive  places  of 
retreat  for  sinful  flesh,  where  they  might 
repent  of  their  evil  past,  and  be  made  fit  to 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  123 

take  up  a  lowly  place  among  the  respectable 
members  of  society  once  more ; — but  always, 
in  a  sense,  a  place  of  humiliation  and  peni- 
tent degradation. 

As  he  came  along  at  this  time,  and  was 
handy,  and  as  Mar}^'s  friend,  the  artist,  had 
gone  to  Italy  for  some  months,  arid  she  had 
no  other  patron  of  the  like  kind,  so  was  out 
of  work  as  one  may  say,  to  him  Joshua  told 
the  whole  story  of  both  her  and  Joe  Traill ; 
also  how  he  had  kept  them  in  the  best  way 
he  could  from  the  evil  to  which  society  had 
driven  them  in  former  days  :  he  did  not  add 
the  rider  of  how  societv  had  reveno-ed  itself 
on  him  as  on  them,  and  cast  us  all  out  in 
company.  But  now,  he  said,  he  was  de- 
sirous of  placing  them  both  where  their 
temptation  would  he  toivards  honesty; 
where  it  would   be  better  for  them  to  be 


124  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

honest,  and  wliere  falling  back  would  plunge 
them  into  misery  as  \Yell  as  shame. 

Mr.  C.  listened  attentively.  He  ^vas  evi- 
dently touched  l:>y  the  high  spirit  of  the 
man,  but  he  greatly  questioned  the  wisdom 
of  his  ways.  For  Joe,  he  said,  he  scarcely 
knew  what  to  propose.  He  shrank  from 
committing  himself  to  the  patronage  of  a 
convicted  thief,  who  was  not  a  boy  to  be 
sent  to  a  reformatory  and  disciplined  into 
good  ways.  It  was  out  of  his  line  alto- 
gether, and  he  had  no  machinery  at  hand 
for  him.  Had  he  been  a  broken-down, 
solder,  honest,  and  industrious  chap,  who 
had  failed  through  sickness  or  any  blameless 
misfortune,  he  would  then  have  given  him  a 
lift  willingly ;  but  a  man  who  had  slipped 
into  the  dark  ways  of  crime,  who  had  got 
into  houses  at  dead  of  night  with  a  crow- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  125 

bar  and  a  jemmy — he  shook  his  head,  and 
said  he  did  not  like  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  him.  It  was  offering  a  premium  to 
vice  to  take  trouble  to  place  this  unsatis- 
factory waif  and  stray,  when  hundreds  of 
honest  men,  who  had  never  gone  wrong, 
were  perishing  for  want  of  aid. 

''  As  for  that,"  said  Joshua,  "  I  ask 
nothing,  w^hether  this  man  sinned  or  his 
parents  ;  or  neither.  He  is  in  want ;  and,  to 
my  way  of  thinking,  his  need  is  his  claim, 
not  his  respectability." 

Mr.  C.  looked  dubious.  "  We  must  draw 
a  line,"  he  said. 

"  Christ  drew  it  at  the  Pharisee,''  an- 
swered Joshua  simply. 

"  To  make  no  difference  between  vice 
and  vu'tue — to  tr.'^'.at  the  one  as  tenderly  as 
the  other — would  soon  be  to  obliterate  all 


126  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

difference  between  them  in  minds  as  well  as 
in  practice,"  said  Mr.  C. 

"  And  what,  then,  do  we  say  to  the 
parable  of  the  men  who  worked  unequally, 
and  who  got  the  same  wages  at  the  end  V^ 
said  Joshua. 

''  My  good  fellow,"  cried  Mr.  C.  a  little 
impatiently,  "it  would  be  perfectly  impos- 
sible to  try  and  live  strictly  after  the  Bible. 
*  Counsels  of  perfection '  are  all  very  well,  but 
they  are  impracticable  for  the  world  as  it  is." 

"  I  have  to  find  that  out  yet,"  said  Joshua. 
"  Then  you  wdll  not  help  me  with  poor 
Joe?" 

"  Do  not  say  I  will  not — I  cannot,"  said 
Mr.  C.  *'  How  can  I  ask  my  poor,  honest 
pensioners,  or  my  respectable  workmen,  to 
receive  a  convicted  thief  among  them  ?" 

" '  And  forgive  us  our  trespasses,  as  we 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  127 

forgive  them  that  trespass  against  us/ 
Does  that  mean  only  petty,  personal  affronts, 
sir,  or  does  it  mean  trespass  against  our 
patience,  our  hope,  our  faith,  our  principles  \ 
Does  it  not  mean  the  everlasting  Love, 
whether  we  call  it  charity  or  humanity,  by 
which  we  would  raise  the  fallen  and  help 
the  weak  ? " 

"  As  for  that,"  retorted  Mr.  C,  "  there  are 
texts  enough  against  consorting  with  evil. 
You  cannot  touch  pitch,  Mr.  Davidson,  with- 
out being  defiled." 

"  Christ  lodged  in  the  house  of  Simon  the 
leper.  Mary  Magdalene  loved  Him,  and  He 
her.  I  want  no  other  example,  sir.  AYhat 
the  Master  did,  His  followers  and  disciples 
may  imitate  !" 

"  You  are  an  enthusiast,"  said  Mr.  C. 
just  as  the  M.P.  had  said  before  him,  and 


128  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

botli  meant  that  enthusiasm  was  ridiculous ; 
"  and  some  day  these  fine  theories  of  yours 
will  come  to  a  cruel  downfall.  You  will  be 
harbouring  some  ruffian  who  will  turn 
against  you,  and  perhaps  cut  your  throat  for 
your  pains.  I  tell  you  I  know  these  people 
— they  are  incorrigible." 

"  Then  what  would  you  do  with  them, 
Mr.C?" 

"  You  can  do  nothing  with  them  !  "  he 
answered. 

''  But  they  cannot  be  let  to  starye/^  said 
Joshua  earnestly. 

"  I  do  not  see  that  it  is  any  one's  duty  to 
feed  them,  when  they  will  not  feed  them- 
selves save  by  vice  and  crime,"  answered 
the  philanthropist.  "  I  would  make  all 
rogues,  male  and  female,  show  some  tan- 
gible signs    of  repentance  and  good  living 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  129 

before  I  would  help  them  or  countenance 
them  in  any  way.  Believe  me,  your  uni- 
versal charity  is  the  most  disastrous  line 
you  could  adopt/' 

"Then  Christ  was  wrong,"  said  Joshua: 
*'  and  so  we  have  come  round  to  our  start- 
ing-point again.  So  this  is  decided — you 
will  not  give  Joe  Traill  a  trial  ? '' 

"  No  ;  I  would  rather  not  have  anything 
to  do  with  him,''  said  Mr.  C,  who  had 
talked  himself  cross  and  determined.  "I 
should  never  be  easy  with  the  fellow.  I 
have  no  fancy  for  burglars,  and  I  don't 
believe  in  their  reformation.  All  my  men 
are  picked  men ;  not  a  loose  character 
among  them.  I  could  not  ask  them  to 
admit  a  convicted  thief  as  one  of  them  ;  and 
if  I  did,  my  own  influence  over  them  would 
be     gone.      It    is    because  they    know     I 


130  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

would  never  pardon  the  smallest  dereliction 
of  duty  that  I  keep  them  up  to  the  mark  : 
with  what  face  then  could  I  place  among 
them  such  an  unsatisfactory  companion  as 
your  'protege'^  The  thing  would  be  im- 
possible  !  With  the  woman  perhaps  I  can 
do  something.  If  she  is  young,  she  cannot 
be  wholly  hardened,  and  I  could  get  her  into 

the Street  Reformatory. " 

"No,"  said  Joshua,  "I  will  not  consent 
to  her  going  into  a  reformatory.  It  is  not 
that  she  needs.  In  a  reformatory  she  will 
be  continually  reminded  of  what  I  want  her 
to  forget.  She  would  be  made  morbid  by 
incessant  thought  about  herself;  taught  to 
say  penitential  psalms  when  she  should  be 
set  to  learn  some  skilled  employment  that 
would  be  of  use  to  her  in  the  future.  I  wish 
her  to  be  kept  virtuous  through  self-respect, 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  131 

and  by  being  placed  beyond  the  need  of  going 
back  to  siieli  a  life.  I  do  not  want  lier  to 
be  weakened  by  a  self-torturing  contrition 
for  the  past,  or  terrified  at  the  prospect  of 
eternal  damnation  for  the  future.  I  want 
her  to  be  lifted  up,  not  cast  down." 

"  You  surely  do  not  make  light  of  re- 
pentance!" cried  Mr.  C.  warmly.  ''What 
other  assurance  have  we  that  she  will  not 
fail  again  ?" 

"  The  best  assurance,  sir,  will  be  to  teach 
her  self-respect  and  the  means  of  gaining  an 
honest  living,"  said  Joshua. 

"You  are  a  rank  materialist,  David- 
son !  "  said  Mr.  C.  "  I  cannot  stand  your 
referring  sin  to  mere  social  conditions.  Are 
there  no  such  things  as  sins  in  high  places  ? 
Poverty  and  ignorance  are  not  the  only 
roots  of  human  wickedness  1" 

K  2 


132  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

"About  tlie  strongest  though,"  Joshua 
answered. 

*^  And  the  sins  of  Inxmy " 

''Make  Mary  Prinsep  and  her  class,"  in- 
terrupted Joshua.  "  See  here,  sir,  what  are 
you  asked  to  do  ? — to  repair,  in  a  very  small 
way,  the  evil  done  by  society.  You  repre- 
sent society  at  this  moment,  and  you  are 
asked  to  undo  a  portion  of  your  own  bad 
work." 

"  Pshaw- ! ''  said  Mr.  C.  "  /  have  not  made 
Mary  bad!" 

He  was  an  individual  kind  of  man,  and 
never  saw  beyond  his  own  point. 

"  Well,"  he  then  said,  "  I  will  do  what  I 
can  for  the  young  woman.  My  wife  wants 
an  under-servant ;  I  will  put  the  case  to 
her;  but  I  rely  on  you,"  he  added,  old 
habits  of  thought  coming   back    to    steady 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  133 

him  in  this  sudden  taking-off  of  his  feet,  as 
it  were ;  "  I  rely  on  you  that  I  am  dealing 
with  a  woman  substantially  repentant,  and 
so  far  purified ;  and  that  she  will  not  cor- 
rupt the  rest.  For  it  is  a  dangerous  expeii- 
ment  at  the  best." 

"  She  is  good  enough  for  any  one  to  trust 
and  to  love,"  said  Joshua  warmly;  and 
Mr.  C.  looked  at  him  with  a  sharp,  sus- 
picious glance  that  quite  changed  his  face. 
*'  And  I  thank  you  heartily,"  Joshua  went 
on  to  say,  unconscious  that  he  had  caused 
the  sHghtest  discomfort  in  the  gentleman's 
mind ;  ^'  you  have  done  a  good  work 
to-day  —  a  work  of  brotherhood  with 
Christ." 

"  I  trust  I  am  not  doing  Avrong,"  said 
Mr.  C.  doubtfully  ;  "  but  it  is  against  my 
principles,  you  know.     I  cannot  help  feeling 


f34  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

that  I  am  rewarding  a  woman,  because  she 
has  lived  a  life  of  infamy,  with  a  position 
which  hundreds  of  virtuous  girls  would  be 
rejoiced  to  fill." 

"  If  your  economic  conscience  troubles 
you,  sir,  lay  it  at  rest  by  the  answer  our 
Lord  made  to  Himself,  when  He  asked  the 
Canaanitish  woman  if  it  were  meet  to  cast 
the  children's  bread  to  dogs." 

*'  For  all  that,  I  cannot  think  it  a  duty  to 
reward  vice,"  persisted  Mr.  C.  "And  in 
doing^  what  I  am  doinor  now,  I  wish  it  to  be 
distinctly  understood  that  it  is  at  your 
instance." 

"Which  means  that  you  refuse  the  re- 
sponsibility ?" 

"  It  does." 

''  So  be  it,  sir.     I  accept  it." 

"  That  will  not  help  me  much  if  the  thing 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  135 

turns  out  ill,"  said  Mr.  C.  in  a  discomposed 

voice. 

"Oh,  sir,  liave  faith  in  human  nature!" 
said  Joshua  earnestly — so  earnestly  that  I 
believe  the  tears  were  in  his  eyes :  they 
were  in  his  voice. 

"  It  is  because  I  know  human  nature  that 
I  have  so  little  faith  in  it,"  said  Mr.  C. 
*'  Every  one  wants  the  help  of  strict  moral 
principle  to  enable  him  to  steer  clear  of 
the  temptations  so  sure  to  beset  him,  and 
these  fallen  brothers  and  sisters  are  but 
leaky  vessels  at  the  best.  If  human  nature 
was  the  grand  thing  you  say  it  is,  Mr. 
Davidson,  of  what  need  the  coming  of 
Christ  ?     You  are  a  Christian." 

"  And  it  is  because  Christ  lived  that  I 
believe  in  humanity,"  said  Joshua. 

On  which,  Mr.   C.    saying  with  a    smile, 


136  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

"  There  is  no  doing  anything  with  you,  Mr. 
Davidson  ;  you  are  as  unconvinceable  as  a 
woman,"  shook  hands  with  him  kindly 
enough,  and  left. 

A  day  or  two  after  this  he  came  again, 
with  many  kind  words,  much  regret  and  I 
doubt  not  genuine,  but — his  wife  was  as 
afraid  of  our  poor  Mary  as  he  had  been  of 
Joe  Traill,  and  refused  to  take  her  into  her 
house.  If  the  other  servants  should  ever 
know ;  if  Mary  had  imposed  on  Joshua,  and 
was  really  of  no  good  ;  if  she  should  cor- 
rupt the  younger  ones ;  and  then  the  repute 
of  their  house — the  duty  they  owed  their 
neighbours  to  keep  up  a  stainless  appearance. 
No,  there  could  be  no  home  for  her  there ; 
but  the  lady  sent  a  note,  full  of  that  half- 
censorious  advice  a  virtuous  woman  knovv^s 
so    well   how   to    administer   to   her   fallen 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  137 

sisters  —  a  parcel  of  tracts  (Mary  could 
not  read),  and  a  renewal  of  her  hus- 
band's offer  to  get  her  in  the  Street 

Eeformatory.  After  which  perhaps  some 
kind  Christian  person  would  be  found  to 
take  her,  she  said,  endorsed  as  she  would 
then  be  by  the  Lady  Superintendent  of  the 
establishment.  For  without  casting  any  slur 
on  Mr.  Davidson,  she  went  on  to  say,  the 
voucher  of  only  a  young  man  was  not  quite 
satisfactory  to  a  mistress  Avho  cared  for  the 
honour  of  her  house.  And  perhaps  she  was 
right.  But  then  Joshua  was  not  like  other 
young  men  ;  only  she  did  not  know  this  ; 
and  Christians  think  it  no  sin  to  sus- 
pect all  manner  of  evil  of  each  other, 
unless  they  know  for  certain  it  does  not 
exist. 

Well,    it    was    a    disappointment ;     but 


138  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

Joshua  was  not  a  man  to  be  cast  down  for 
one  blow  or  a  dozen  ;  so  lie  set  to  work  to 
find  some  one  who  would  take  her,  knowing 
her  past  life ;  and  at  last  lighted  on  a  good, 
tender-hearted,  but  timid  woman,  who  re- 
ceived her  in  full  faith  so  far  as  the  girl 
herself  was  concerned,  but  on  the  express 
condition  that  no  one  should  ever  know 
what  she  had  been,  and  that  there  was  to  be 
no  kind  of  communication  between  her  and 
ourselves,  or  any  of  her  old  Church-court 
friends.  To  these  terms  Joshua  advised  her 
to  submit ;  so  with  many  tears  poor  Mary 
went  away  to  take  the  place  of  kitchen- 
maid  in  a  family  living  at  a  little  distance 
from  London,  where,  as  the  lady  said,  she 
had  a  chance  now  of  redeeming  herself,  and 
a  new  start  given  her  altogether. 

"  And  if  I  dd  well,  Joshua,  you  will  be 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  139 

pleased  with  me  ? "  she  said  as  she  was 
bidding  us  good-by. 

"More  than  pleased,  Mary,"  he  said. 
'•'You  know  that  I  trust  you,  and  that  we 
both  love  you — John  here  as  well  as  I." 

Mary's  face  was  as  white  as  the  frill 
round  her  neck.  *' Joshua  !"  she  said,  look- 
ing up  at  him,  "  give  me  one  kiss  before  I 
go  ;  it  will  help  me." 

Joshua  bent  his  noble  head  and  kissed 
her  tenderly. 

"  God  be  with  you,  sister !  "  he  said,  and 
his  voice  a  little  failed  him. 

"  And  I  will  say  the  prayer  you  taught 
me,  Joshua,  regularly  morning  and  even- 
ing when  I  ain't  too  sleepy,"  said  Mary 
simply.     "And  you  will  pray  for  me  too  V 

"  As  I  do  ever,  my  girl,"  said  Joshua : 
"  and  I  believe  that  God  hears  us  ! " 


140  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

"  Then  He  will  hear  me  ! ''  said  Mary 
with  a  kindling  face  ;  "  and  I'll  pray  harder 
nor  ever  for  the  thing  I  want !" 

Poor  Mary !  prayer  was  nanght  but  a 
"charm"  to  her  as  yet.  She  had  never  heard 
one,  never  offered  one,  till  Joshua  taught 
her  the  Lord's  Prayer,  with  a  childish 
hymn  and  a  childish  "  God  bless  all  I 
love  "  at  the  end ;  and  she  repeated  what 
she  had  been  taught  as  a  young  child 
might ;  believing  that  it  did  good  because 
she  had  been  told  so  by  one  she  loved  and 
trusted,  but  realisinor  nothinor  more.  Or  if 
she  realised  anything,  it  was  that  she  prayed 
to  Joshua,  gro^\Ti  very  great  and  strong,  and 
a  long  way  off. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  141 


CHAPTER  VII. 


Joshua's  life  of  work  and  endeavour 
brought  with  it  no  reward  of  praise  or  popu- 
larity. It  suffered  the  fate  of  all  unsec- 
tarianism,  and  made  him  to  be  as  one  man 
in  the  midst  of  foes.  Had  he  been  a  con- 
verted sinner  like  Ned  Wright,  preaching 
the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  and  Purifi- 
cation by  the  blood  of  Jesus,  he  would  have 
had  all  the  evangelical  force  at  his  back, 
pivoted  as  they  are  on  the  same  hub,  what- 
ever their  special  denomination.  Had  he 
been  a  Ritualist,  working  under  organised 
authority,  he  would  have  then  been  a  pipe,  so 


142  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

to  speak,  tlirougii  wHch  flowed  the  power  of 
the  Church  ;  and  this  much  more  had  he 
been  a  Koman  Catholic,  and  of  any  Order. 
Had  he  been  a  Unitarian,  a  stickler  for  re- 
spectability and  that  the  poor  he  relieved 
should  be  deserving,  like  Mr.  C.  and  the 
charity-organisation  people  ;  or  a  Political 
Economist,  giving  lectures  on  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand,  and  the  immorality  of 
large  families  ;  had  he  belonged  to  any  body 
whatsoever,  he  would  have  been  supported. 
But,  as  he  was — a  man  working  on  the 
Christ  plan,  and  that  alone  ;  dealing  with 
Humanity  by  pity  and  love  and  tolerance 
— he  was  as  a  strano^er  and  an  alien. 

The  whole  force  of  home  missionaries  of 
every  denomination  discountenanced  him  as 
an  infidel,  unsound,  irregular ;  and  in  what- 
soever  they   disagreed    among   themselves, 


JOSHUA  DAVIDSON.  143 

they  all  agreed  in  their  ill  estimate  of  him. 
The  police  were  suspicious  of  him,  and  set 
him  do^Yn  as  a  doubtful  character  who 
harboured  criminals ;  and  the  very  people 
to  whom  he  gave  himself — accustomed  as 
they  w^ere  to  be  scouted  by  every  man  and 
woman  pretending  to  clean  hands  and  a 
pure  life,  or,  at  the  best,  to  be  preached  at 
and  urged  to  remorse  —  misdoubted  him. 
The  absence  of  abhorrence  in  his  dealings 
with  them  looked  to  some  like  a  trap,  to 
others  hke  encouragement.  And  yet  they 
could  scarcely  think  that ! — with  all  his  en- 
deavours to  put  them  into  a  better  way  of 
life,  and  to  lift  them  out  of  the  necessity  of 
crime  by  giving  them  the  alternative  of 
honesty  made  possible,  because  giving  them 
work  sufficient  for  their  daily  wants. 

But  he  soon  began  to  see  that  the  utmost 


144  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

lie,  or  a  dozen  such  as  he,  could  do,  was 
only  palliative  and  temporary.  He  might 
save  one  out  of  a  thousand,  and  he  would 
do  well  if  he  did  that ;  but  what  is  one  out 
of  a  thousand  cleansed  and  set  in  a  safe 
place,  to  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
left  in  their  filth  at  the  bottom  of  the  abyss  ? 
Things  have  gone  too  far  in  England  now 
for  private  charities  to  be  of  much  use. 
What  is  wanted  is  a  thorough  reorganisation 
of  society,  so  that  the  distribution  of  wealth 
and  knowledge  shall  not  be  so  partial  as  it 
is.  And  this  the  working  classes  must  get 
for  themselves  by  combination. 

So  Joshua  turned  to  class-organisation  as 
something  more  hopeful  than  private  charity. 
But  do  not  let  me  be  misunderstood  :  he 
gave  up  nothing  of  his  own  personal  doings 
among  the  poor,  and  never  wearied  nor  re- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  145 

laxed.  If  he  looked  to  organisation  as  the 
framework,  he  did  not  disdain  charity  as 
the  enrichment,  in  the  plan  of  social  ame- 
lioration. 

When   the  International  Working  Men's 
Association  was  formed,  he  joined  it  as  one 
of    its   first    members ;    indeed   he  mainly 
helped  to  establish  it.     It  had  been  one  of 
his  articles  of  belief  long  before  any  one  else 
had  spoken,    that   the  time  had  passed  for 
distinct    and    exclusive   nationalities  ;    and 
that  if  working  men  would  free  themselves 
from  the  fetters  in  which  ca^^ital  and  caste 
have  bound  them,  it  must  be  by  their  own 
class-fraternisation   all  over  the  world.      If 
labour  is  to  make  its  own  terms  mth  capital, 
it  must  be  by  the  coercive  strength  of  the 
labourer.     To  wait  for  the  free  gift  of  the 
capitalist,  through  his  recognition  of  human 


146  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

duties,  as  some  among  the  Comtists  urge, 
would  be  to  wait  for  the  millennium.  Yet 
the  International  represented  no  class  enmity 
with  him.  He  had  no  dream  of  barricades 
and  high  places  taken  by  assault.  It  was 
to  him,  as  to  his  other  English  brethren,  an 
orofanisation  to  streno;then  the  hands  of  the 
labourer  everywhere,  but  not  to  plunge  so- 
ciety into  a  bloody  war.  It  was  a  means  of 
class-advancement  by  peaceable  and  noble 
efforts,  not  of  universal  destruction  by 
violent  or  ignoble  ones. 

The  middle  classes  laugh  at  the  artisan's 
desire  to  rise  in  the  world,  and  speak  of  his 
close  combinations  as  traitorous  and  re- 
bellious to  the  existing  order  of  things. 
Some  think  it  an  irreligious  contempt  of  a 
caste-Providence ;  forgetting  that  their  own 
order  was  made  by  the  same  spirit  of  de- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  147 

termination,  and  tliat  the  recognition  of  the 
merchant  class,  and  its  reception  on  any- 
thing like  terms  of  equality,  was  forced  from 
the  nobles  by  men  who  had  at  heart  the 
great  truth  of  human  equality  and  human 
rights ;  at  least,  down  to  that  part  of  the 
social  page  where  their  own  names  stood. 
Below  that  paragraph  where  the  artisan,  the 
proletaire,  is  to  be  found,  society  has  as 
yet  drawn  a  line  not  to  be  overpassed. 
Demand  rights  and  recognition  for  working 
men,  and  even  the  Liberal  press  gives  forth 
an  uncertain  sound,  and  the  bugbear  of 
"  Jack  Cade  "  scares  such  stout  hearts  as  the 
Pall  Mall  and  the  Spectator.  Even  they, 
kings  of  liberal  thought  as  they  are  in  so 
many  ways,  will  nqt  see  that  the  modern 
artisan  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  capital 
as  that  in  which  the  ancient  serf  stood  to 

L  2 


148  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

the  land.  The  serf  tilled  the  land,  which 
was  his  master's,  for  his  master.  If  he  could 
get  for  himself  a  living  about  as  good  as 
that  of  the  hogs  he  forested,  he  had  all  that 
Avas  considered  necessary  for  a  serf  And 
the  artisan  represents  the  serf  of  olden  days, 
while  capital  is  the  foretime  baron.  The 
baron  gave  his  villein  disdainful  leave  to 
live  because  his  life  was  so  far  requisite 
to  his  ov-ii  needs ;  but  individually  he  had 
neither  rights  nor  value.  So  the  capitalist. 
He  gives  his  workmen  only  enough  to  keep 
them  in  efficient  working  order — or  not  that, 
if  the  labour  market  is  so  thronged  that  he 
can  replace  without  trouble  those  who  foil 
out.  His  "  hands  "  are  the  mere  parts  of  his 
machinery.  The  sum  of  them  work  to  a 
certain  result ;  but  he  is  indifierent  whether 
the  work  is  done   witli  sorrow  and  insuffi- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  149 

ciency  to  the  individual  or  not.  His  sole 
business  is  to  see  that  the  sum  oet  throudi 
their  labours  creditably — to  the  firm.  It  is 
good  that  the  work  of  the  world  should  be 
done  at  all  costs,  even  by  comj^ulsory  labour 
if  need  be  ;  but  it  is  better  that  it  should  be 
done  by  men  regarded  as  men,  individual, 
and  ha  vino-  inalienable  rioiits,  rather  than  as 
so  many  portions  of  a  vitalised  mechanism. 
And  a  fair  and  proportionate  share  in  the 
profits  of  the  business  is  part  of  the  rights 
of  the  labourer. 

I  am  speaking  now  as  if  of  myself ;  but  I 
am  only  repeating  what  I  have  heard  my 
friend  say  scores  of  times. 

Of  course  Joshua  was  an  earnest  Ee- 
publican.  AVho  that  thinks  for  himself  can 
fail  to  be  one  ?  Not  that  he  would  have 
put  aside  the  reigning  sovereign  by  force, 


ISO  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

but  he  held  that  the  times  were  ripening  for 
the  old  monarchical  symbol  and  aristocratic 
exclusiveness  to  disappear  now  that  the 
reality  had  gone ;  and  that  the  Eepublic 
would  come  about  of  itself,  thanks,  in  great 
part,  to  the  monarch  who  has  shown  the 
people  that  royalty  can  be  dispensed  with 
and  yet  things  go  none  the  worse  for  the 
withdrawal,  and  to  the  aristocracy  which 
has  abandoned  its  old  traditions  of  blood 
and  birth,  and  has  sold  so  many  of  its  blue 
ribands  to  money.  But  he  was  not  a  Ee- 
publican  of  the  kind  to  rave  and  vilify,  and 
accuse  all  the  higher  classes  of  Avilful  mis- 
doing, of  vice  and  selfishness,  and  what  not. 
He  never  abused  anybody,  but  judged  things 
by  their  merits,  and  gave  to  the  professors 
of  any  doctrine,  no  matter  what,  at  least 
the  credit  of  sincerity.     By  which  he  made 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  151 

many  enemies,  and  was  constantly  accused 
of  lukewarmness  to  the  cause,  and  of  looking 
two  ways  at  once. 

"  You  cannot  beat  me  off  my  point,"  he 
used  to  say,  when  he  had  put  into  an  uproar 
a  little  inner  and  anonymous  society  which 
some  few  of  us  had  formed  together,  by  vin- 
dicatino'  some  man  whose  measures  he  also 
had  attacked.  "  I  say  that  we  do  our  cause 
harm,  and  degrade  ourselves,  by  all  these 
childish  personalities.  What  we  have  to  do 
is,  to  defend  our  own  principles,  and  show 
the  fallacy  or  the  evil  of  our  opponents' ; 
but  we  must  fight  fair,  and  give  that  credit 
for  honesty  of  purpose  which  we  demand  for 
ourselves.  If  we  are  thieves  and  brigands 
to  the  governing  classes,  and  they  are  thieves 
and  brigands  to  us,  what  kind  of  under- 
standing can  we  ever  come  to  together  ? " 


152  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

But  L.,  one  of  those  faimtical  men  who 
cannot  accept  the  doctrine  of  an  opponent's 
virtue,  and  whose  zeal  takes  the  form  of  the 
wildest  abuse  on  all  who  diJffer  from  him, 
got  up  and  denounced  Joshua  as  an  "in- 
herent traitor,"  and  advised  his  expulsion 
from  the  society.  And  more  than  one  of 
the  council  looked  grave,  and  as  if  they 
were  giving  their  minds  to  it,  had  not 
Fehx  Pyat  risen,  and  given  his  opinion 
so  forcibly  that  the  malcontents  were 
silenced.  Even  the  thin-voiced  little  man 
who  had  denounced  Joshua,  and  whose  am- 
bition was  to  be  regarded  as  the  Eobespierre 
of  the  society — incorruptible,  and  not  to  be 
moved  by  fear  or  favour — even  he  had  to 
give  in.  For  Felix  was  our  giant ;  and  Felix 
loved  Joshua. 

This  was  at  the  time  when  he  was  over 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  153 

here  as  an  exile,  chiefly  reading  at  the 
British  Museum,  and  when  he  gained  the 
love  and  admiration  of  all  who  knew  him 
by  the  dignity,  the  devotion,  the  earnestness 
of  his  life.  I  mention  this  somewhat  by 
the  way,  as  my  feeble  protest  against  the 
terms  in  which  it  is  the  fashion  to  speak  of 
one  of  the  finest  fellows  that  ever  lived — as 
fine  in  his  own  way  as  Delescluze,  our  martyr, 
— and  by  those  who  ought  to  know  better  ; 
and  who  do  know  better ;  but  who  think  it 
politic  to  swim  with  the  stream,  and  to 
curse  those  whom  fortune  has  not  blessed. 

From  his  position  in  the  International, 
and  in  other  political  societies — which  abound 
among  the  working  men  more  than  the  care- 
less upper  ten  have  the  least  idea  of — 
Joshua  was  thrown  into  intimate  relations 
with  a  great  many  men,  more    or  less  no- 


154  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

torious.  He  saw  all  sorts — the  frothy  ranter 
Avhose  motive  power  was  vanity  ;  the  reckless 
agitator  whose  conscience  was  obscured, 
and,  so  lono;  as  there  was  somethinsj  stirrino^, 
cared  nothing  what  stirred  or  who  suffered  ; 
the  bilious  antagonist  to  all  men  superior  to 
himself,  and  who  would  pull  down  those 
above  to  his  own  level  but  never  raise 
up  to  it  those  who  lay  below  ;  the  honest 
patriot  willing  to  sink  all  minor  differences 
in  the  one  great  aim,  and  ready  to  sacrifice 
himself  for  the  good  of  his  cause  and  class, 
but  blind  as  a  beetle  as  to  the  best  methods : 
he  saw  them  all,  and  he  accepted  all  with 
that  broad  human  love,  that  large  and  liberal 
allowance  of  differences,  which  made  the 
charm  of  his  character. 

"They   are   good    elements,"   he  used  to 
say,  "  badly  mixed.     Does  not  some  one  say 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  155 

that  dirt  is  only  matter  in  the  wrong  place  ? 
So  these  men  as  leaders  would  be  pernicious 
enouo'h,  but  a  wise  administration  could 
utilise  them.  When  Fourier  could  find  an 
economic  value  in  the  diablotin,  we  need 
not  fear  for  any  one." 

It  was  on  this  point  that  Joshua  and  the 
chief  man  of  the  London  branch  split.  He 
was  a  purist,  and  gave  his  mind  to  tares. 
But  Joshua  thought  more  of  the  wheat,  and 
believed  in  the  larger  power  of  good  than  of 
evil.  He  opposed  all  that  narrow  partisan- 
ship which  goes  only  in  one  gToove,  and 
said,  as  the  skilled  workmen  have  lately 
said,  that  he  would  work  with  any  one,  no 
matter  what  his  rank  or  politics,  who  would 
aid  him  and  his  order  in  securing  the  essen- 
tials for  knowledge  and  decency  of  living. 
The  more  rabid  and  ultra  of  the  politicians 


156  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

attacked  him,  as  lie  had  been  attacked  in 
the  other  society  ;  but  he  held  on  in  his  own 
broad,  generous  way.  And  though  he  never 
got  the  ear  of  the  International,  because  he 
was  so  truly  liberal,  he  had  some  little  in- 
fluence ;  and  what  influence  he  had  ennobled 
their  councils  as  they  have  never  been 
ennobled  since. 

This  is  not  speaking  against  the  society. 
I  belong  to  it  myself,  and  I  am  proud  to  do 
so.  But  I  have  learnt  from  my  friend  to 
distrust  one-sided  partisans,  and  to  think  all 
questions  best  argued  from  their  principles, 
and  the  men  w^ho  either  support  or  oppose 
them  left  out  in  the  shade.  Men  don't 
wilfully  uphold  the  thing  they  know  to  be 
bad.  Take  the  stiffest  Conservative  of  them 
all — the  man  w^ho  believes  in  the  divine 
ordination  of  caste,  and  the   absolute  need 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  157 

of  preserving  the  fetichism  of  society  as  it 
is,  even  though,  like  Juggernaut,  the  great 
car  of  gentility  crushes  the  whole  working 
class  beneath  it  —  he  may  be,  and  is, 
sorry  for  the  individuals  ;  but  he  maintains 
the  existing  order  conscientiously.  And  to 
blackguard  him,  and  call  him  blood- 
sucker, and  all  the  names  that  hysterical 
men  do  call  him,  is  simply  childish  anger, 
not  manly  argument.  So,  on  the  other 
side,  the  men  who  would  make  a  revolution 
by  fire  and  blood,  as  has  been  said,  if 
necessary,  though  they  too  would  be  sorry 
for  the  individuals  who  had  to  sufier,  yet 
they  would  feel  the  thing  to  be  done  so 
much  more  righteous  than  the  suifering 
would  be  unrighteous,  that  they  would 
sacrifice  the  few  and  the  present  to  the 
good   of  the  many  and  the   future.      And 


158  THE    TRUE    HISTORY   OF 

these  are  no  more  ''  bloodthirsty  scoundrels/' 
and  all  the  rest  of  it,  than  their  opponents. 
After  all,  it  is  the  same  battle  of  strength  which 
goes  on  throughout  creation — the  struggle 
for  existence  in  class  as  in  individuals  ;  and 
"  the  good  old  rule,  the  royal  plan  "  has  its 
meaning  and  its  uses,  in  that  it  necessitates 
endeavour ;  which  is  the  sole  way  by  which 
things  human  come  to  perfection. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  159 


CHAPTER  YIII. 


We  were  eittins;  one  evenins^  at  the  niglit 
school  whicli  Joshua  still  kept  up,  the  room 
full  of  men  and  women  of  what  the  world 
calls  the  worst  kind,  when  the  door  was 
flung  open  with  a  clatter,  and  Joe  Traill, 
shabbier  and  dirtier  than  ever,  staggered  in 
half-drunk.  I  do  not  know  if  I  have  said 
that  Joshua  had  at  last  succeeded  in  getting 
him  a  situation,  where  he  would  have  done 
well  enough  had  he  kept  oflf  drink  ;  but  he 
had  not ;  and  this  was  the  upshot  after  about 
three  months'  fair  sailing;. 

"  It's  no  use,  governor,"  he  said  to  Joshua, 


i6o  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

in  his  drunken  way  ;  "  work  and  no  lusli  too 
hard  for  me,  governor !  I'd  got  to  fall 
'  soft!" 

"  Well  Joe,  my  man,  it  seems  that  you 
have  fallen  soft  enough  this  time ;  as  soft  as 
mud !  "  said  Joshua.  ''  However,  sit  down 
and  make  no  noise.  I  will  talk  to  you  by- 
and-by." 

"  Not  a  copper !  "  said  Joe,  turning  his 
pockets  inside  out  and  holding  on  by  the 
tips.  "I've  come  back  like  the  devil,  worse 
than  I  went !  " 

•''  All  right,  friend,  but  not  just  now ;  let 
me  go  on  with  what  I  have  in  hand,  and  then 
I'll  attend  to  you.'' 

But  Joe  was  in  that  state  when  a  man  is 
either  maudlin  or  quarrelsome.  He  was  the 
latter  ;  and  partly  because  he  had  still  sense 
enough  to  be  ashamed  of  himself,  and  partly 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  i6i 

because  he  was  pricking  all  over  like  a  por- 
cupine with  the  drink,  and  wanted  to  have 
it  out  with  some  one,  he  chose  to  try  and 
fasten  a  quarrel  on  Joshua.  So  he  set  at  him 
again  ;  this  time  with  some  ribaldry  Til  not 
lower  myself  to  repeat.  And  again  Joshua 
answered  him  mildly,  but  more  authori- 
tatively than  before. 

"  Sit  down,"  he  said ;  and  I  don't  think 
I  ever  heard  his  voice  sound  so  hard  and 
stern.  "  You've  made  a  sore  enough  job  of 
it  for  one  day;  don't  add  to  your  disgrace 
by  folly." 

Then  the  bad  blood,  the  bad  convict  blood 
that  never  got  quite  clear  away,  boiled  up  in 
Joe,  and  he  let  out  from  his  shoulder  and 
struck  Joshua  on  his  head,  at  the  side  just 
above  the  ear.  A  dozen  men  rose  at  once  ; 
a  dozen  voices  cursed  and  swore,  some  at 


1 62  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

Joe  for  tlie  blow,  some  yaMng  at  Joshua  for 
not  returning  it;  women  shrieked;  the  forms 
were  upset  as  the  men  scrambled  forward ; 
and  the  quiet  night-school  was  turned  into  a 
roaring  Babel  of  tumult  and  violence.  One 
brawny  fellow — he  too  was  a  burglar,  a  man 
who  might  at  any  time  develop  into  a 
murderer ;  but  he  had  more  fibre  in  him 
than  poor,  loose,  slippery  Joe,  more  to  go 
upon  as  it  were,  and  so  could  be  held  in 
hand  better  if  once  you  could  master  his 
brutality — he  squared  up  to  the  drunken 
creature,  on  whom  already  half-a-dozen 
hands  were  fiercely  laid.  But  Joshua,  who 
had  turned  white  and  sick-looking  with  the 
blow,  laid  his  left  hand  on  Jim's  big  arm, 
while  he  held  out  his  right  to  Joe  Traill, 
saying ;  "Why  Joe !  strike  at  a  man,  and 
your  friend,    for   nothing !      You   must   be 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  163 

dreaming,  my  son,  and  a  bad  dream  too ! 
Give  us  your  hand,  and  wake  up  out  of  it !  '* 
I  can  tell  nothing  more.  There  was 
nothing  perhaps  in  the  words,  but  there  was 
that  in  the  look  of  him,  as  he  stood  there 
so  white  and  yet  so  kingly,  with  one  hand 
keeping  back  Jim  Graves,  the  other  offered 
to  Joe  squirming  in  the  grasp  of  those  who 
held  him,  that  acted  like  a  spell  on  all  the 
room.  There  were  men  there,  and  women  too, 
who  would  have  been  ready  to  tear  him  in 
pieces  themselves  if  they  had  suspected  for 
an  instant  that  his  loving  leniency  was  from 
cowardice ;  but  it  was  no  coward  who  con- 
fronted the  drunkard  that  had  struck  him, 
who  confronted  that  roaring,  yelling  crowd 
of  desperate  men  and  women,  and  calmed 
them  all  by  his  own  unutterable  dignity. 
The  same  intense  look  that  had  come  into 

M   2 


1 64  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

his  face  when,  a  little  lad,  he  had  questioned 
the  parson  in  the  church,  when,  a  youth,  he 
had  prayed  for  a  miracle  in  the  Eocky 
Valley,  came  into  his  face  now.  He  was  as 
if  raised  into  something  more  than  man — so 
simple,  so  earnest  as  he  was — so  far  above 
all  common  weaknesses,  so  near  to  God,  so 
like  to  Christ ! 

Joe  burst  into  tears,  sobered  and  subdued  ; 
many  of  the  women  cried  too,  even  that  big 
coarse-mouthed  Betsy  Lyon,  one  of  the  most 
abandoned  women  of  the  district ;  while  the 
men  slunk  together  as  it  were,  and  most  of 
them  said  a  few  rough  words  of  praise, 
which,  well  meant  as  they  were,  sounded 
very  far  amiss  at  such  a  time.  And  then  the 
police,  attracted  by  the  tumult,  came  up  into 
the  room ;  and,  glad  of  an  opportunity  they 
had   been    looking    for— after   having   been 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  165 

knocked  about  a  good  deal,  for  all  that 
Joshua  and  I  did  our  best  to  protect  them — 
marched  us  both  off  to  the  station-house 
where  we  were  locked  up  for  the  night,  no 
bail  being  at  hand. 

The  mao;istrate  understood  nothins^  of 
Joshua's  defence  next  day,  when  he  made  it, 
but  put  him  down  with  a  severe  rebuke. 
And  as  we  had  to  be  punished,  reason  or 
none,  we  were  both  sent  to  prison  for  a 
couple  of  weeks,  as  a  caution  to  us  to  behave 
ourselves  better  in  the  future.  To  live  accord- 
ino'  to  Christ  in  modern  Christendom  was, 
as  we  found  out,  to  be  next  thing  to  criminal, 
and  at  all  events  qualified  for  prison  disci- 
pline. We  don't  understand  anything  about 
the  Lazaruses  and  Simeons  and  Magdalenes 
of  our  own  city.  When  we  read  of  our  Lord 
and   Master    croino^   about    among;   the    bad 


1 66  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

people  of  His  day,  we  say  it  was  divine; 
when  Joslma  followed  suit,  he  was  locked 
np.  Well,  Christ  was  the  criminal  of  His 
day ;  and  Caiaphas  the  high  priest,  repre- 
senting respectability  and  adhesion  to  the 
existing  order  of  things,  took  Him  in  hand, 
and  taught  the  multitude  so  well  to  feel  how 
far  He  had  erred  against  the  morality  of  the 
day,  that  they  asked  for  Barabbas  rather 
than  for  him.  And  we  have  our  Caiaphases 
in  full  ^do;our  still. 

We  had  not  done  with  poor  Joe.  Mr.  C.'s 
words  came  too  true.  The  demon  of  drink 
had  got  possession  of  him,  and  he  was  no 
more  his  o^stl  master  than  if  he  had  been  a 
lunatic  in  Bedlam.  Durinoj  our  fortnidit's 
imprisonment  he  took  everything  he  could 
lay  his  hands  on — clothes,  furniture,  tools — 
every  individual  thing,  he  did  ! — and  pawned 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  167 

them  for  drink  ;  and  when  we  were  set  at 
liberty,  we  found  our  phxce  stripped. 

I  never  had  Joshua  s  patience,  and  I  con- 
fess I  was  indignant.  It  did  seem  to  me 
such  wicked  ingratitude,  such  lowness  ! 

But  when  I  flared  up  with  sudden  passion, 
and  broke  out  against  the  thief  for  a  rascal 
and  a  scoundrel,  Joshua  silenced  me  with  a 
rebuke  it  w^as  not  in  me  to  resist. 

"  Unto  seventy  times  seven,  John  ? "  he  said, 
"  I  think  we  joined  hands  on  that  line  ?  " 
Then  he  added  :  "  ^Ye  must  look  that  poor 
fellow  up.  He  has  got  on  to  the  incline,  and, 
if  not  stopped,  he  will  go  down  to  perdition." 

He  took  his  hat  and  went  out;  and  after 
many  hours'  search  through  all  the  worst 
haunts  he  knew  of,  brought  Joe  Traill 
back  :  and  kept  him. 

I  need  not  go  over  the  whole  after-history 


i68  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

of  this  wretched  castaway.  It  is  enough  to 
say  that  again  and  again  he  fell  into  bad 
courses,  and  ag:ain  and  ao:ain  Joshua  foro-ave 
him.  No  trial  was  too  severe  for  his 
Christian  forbearance,  his  angelic  patience. 
"  Not  to  the  sinless,  but  to  the  sinners,"  he 
used  to  say ;  and  truly  the  sinners  found  it  so ! 

This  unwearied  sweetness,  this  tenderness 
and  hojDe  that  never  failed,  wrought  their 
good  work  before  too  late;  and  the  convicted 
thief,  who  but  for  Joshua  would  have  ended 
his  days  at  the  hulks,  if  not  at  the  gallows, 
died, — of  the  results  of  former  poverty  and 
vice,  granted — so  far  at  peace  with  the 
law  as  to  die  out  of  jail,  and  repeating 
softly,  "  God  bless  me  and  forgive  me  !  " 

These  backslidings  and  failures  were 
among  the  greatest  difficulties  of  Joshua's 
work.      Men    and   women,  whom    he    had 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  169 

tliouo'ht  he  had  cleansed  and  set  on  a  whole- 
some  way  of  living,  turned  back  again  to  the 
drink  and  the  devilry  of  their  lives.  Excite- 
ment had  become  all  in  all  to  them  ;  the 
monotony  of  virtue  tired  them,  and  they 
broke  out  into  evil  as  a  relief.  But,  fail  as 
often  and  as  badly  as  they  might,  they  never 
chilled  Joshua's  heart,  if  they  saddened  him  ; 
as  indeed  they  did.  He  forgave  them  every- 
thing; ;  whether  their  sins  had  been  against 
himself  or  against  the  law ;  and  took  them 
up  where  they  had  left  him.  Sometimes 
they  laughed  at  him  for  his  patience  with 
them  ;  sometimes  they  swore  at  him  and 
refused  his  friendship  ;  sometimes  they  cried 
and  clung  about  him  with  pathetic  but  short- 
lived gratitude ;  and  sometimes,  but  not 
often,  they  took  his  better  lessons  to  heart 
and  reformed  altogether.    For  the  most  part, 


I70  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

they  just  fluctuated — now  bad,  now  good, 
as  the  fit  took  them  and  temptation  was 
stronger  than  resolution.  But,  bad  or  good, 
he  was  ever  the  same  to  them — in  the  first 
case  tr}dng  to  win  over,  in  the  second 
helping  to  keep  straight,  and  thankful  if  he 
succeeded  ever  so  little  in  his  endeavours. 

The  different  reasons  given  by  the  various 
sectarians  who  came  along,  when  any  of  his 
failures  were  afloat,  were  what  I  have  said 
before.  The  Evangelicals  said  it  was  because 
he  did  not  teach  the  Gospel ;  the  Church 
people,  because  he  was  unconsecrated  to  the 
task ;  the  Unitarians  asked  him,  in  calm 
disdain,  how  he  could  expect  to  do  good, 
if  he  made  no  difference  between  vice  and 
virtue  but  treated  both  alike  ?  while  the 
Charity  Organization  people  talked  of  pro- 
secuting him  for  his  encouragement  of  men- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  171 

rlicity,  and  spoke  of  him  as  tlie  pest  of  the 
district  and  the  cause  of  half  the  pauperism 
about,  because  h^  helped  the  poor  in  their 
need  without  enquiring  into  the  merits  of  the 
case.  And  they  all  agreed  that  the  weak  spot 
in  his  system,  and  the  cause  of  his  failures, 
was  just  this — he  was  not  a  Christian. 

In  the  midst  of  all  Mary  Prinsep  came 
back  on  our  hands.  You  may  perhaps  re- 
member that  her  mistress  had  made  a  point 
of  concealing  her  former  life  from  every  one  ; 
in  which  she  was  justified,  and  for  Mary's 
sake  as  much  as  for  her  own.  Things  had 
gone  very  well  so  far,  and  Mary  had  given 
satisfaction  and  worked  hard  to  deserve  it, 
when  unfortunately  that  man  who  had 
known  her  only  too  well  in  the  sorroA^^ul 
days  of  her  sin,  came  with  his  family  to  the 
house,  on  a  visit  of  a  day  or  two.     All  the 


172  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

servants  were  marshalled  into  prayers  morn- 
ino'  and  evenino^  :  and  naturally  Mary  with 
them ;  face  to  face  with  the  guests.  So  there 
it  was — on  the  one  side  a  dignified,  haudsome, 
well-to-do  gentleman,  with  respectable  white 
hair  and  a  gold  eye-glass,  a  wife  and  a 
fine .  young  family,  a  character  to  lose,  and 
a  reputation  for  piety  ;  on  the  other,  a  poor 
ignorant  girl,  abandoned  by  society,  driven 
by  want  into  bad  ways,  but  now  doing  her 
best  to  get  out  of  them. 

It  was  an  awkward  meeting  for  him,  and 
he  was  afraid  maybe  of  Mary's  establish- 
in  o-  a  claim,  or  tellins:  what  she  kncAv.  There 
he  was,  a  auest  in  her  master's  house,  with 
his  wife  and  eldest  daughter,  and  under  his 
own  name  which  she  had  never  known,  and 
his  private  and  official  addresses  both  to  be 
got  at.     It  was  an  instinct  of  self-preserva- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  173 

tion,  no  doubt ;  but  it  was  cowardly  all  the 
same  ;  and,  as  usual,  the  weak  one  had  to  go 
to  the  wall.  He  made  up  an  excellent  story 
to  explain  how  it  was  that  he  knew  the 
girl's  former  life.  It  was  a  story  to  his 
credit  as  a  Christian  gentleman  somehow, 
and  he  told  it  out  of  sheer  regard  for  his 
good  friends  who  had  been  so  shamefully 
imposed  on.  And  even  when  the  lady  con- 
fessed, as  she  did,  that  she  had  known  the 
main  fact  of  Clary's  history,  she  was  urged 
so  strongly  to  get  rid  of  her  that  she  con- 
sented, partly  in  a  vague  kind  of  belief  that 
she  had  been  imposed  on  and  that  Mary  was 
worse  than  she  appeared  and  capable  of 
all  manner  of  unknown  crimes,  partly  by  the 
force  of  respectability  and  the  need  of  keep- 
ing up  blameless  appearances.  So,  as  the 
right  thing  to  do  considering  her  position  and 


174  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

what  she  owed  her  family  and  her  own  cha- 
racter, this  lady — good  Christian  as  she  was, 
going  to  church  regularly  twice  on  Sunday, 
and  taking  the  sacrament  once  a  month — 
turned  the  poor  creature  out  of  doors  again ; 
and  she,  keeping  the  gentleman's  secret  loyally, 
came  back  to  us,  as  the  only  friends  she  had. 
She  was  something  different  to  us  from 
any  other  girl  that  Joshua  had  been 
the  means  of  rescuing,  and  we  both  felt 
that  she  had  a  stronger  claim  somehow,  on 
our  exertions  and  affections.  Other  women 
came  and  went,  and  Joshua  helped  them  and 
got  them  work,  and  did  what  he  could  for 
them,  and  always  kept  up  a  kindly  interest 
in  them,  and  the  like  of  that ;  but  they 
were  not  to  us  what  Mary  was ;  for  she  was 
like  our  own  sister.  So,  when  she  came 
back,  it  was  just  a  family  sorrow  somehow; 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  175 

but,  to  me  at  least,  it  was  a  bit  of  a  joy  too. 
But  you  see  since  we  had  got  into  that 
trouble  about  Joe,  and  had  been  locked  up, 
we  had  been  worse  off  than  eve]*.  Masters 
would  not  employ  us;  mates  would  not  work 
with  us — we  were  ''jail  birds  "  to  them  ;  and 
the  Union  turned  us  out.  Joshua  held  on 
though,  and  we  got  day-jobs ;  but  we  were 
often  hungry  and  often  weary ;  yet  Joshua 
never  let  me  sink  into  despair,  nor  was  he 
ever  near  it  himself,  and  we  managed  to 
scrape  along  somehow.  Still,  our  present 
poverty  made  poor  Mary's  return  embarrass- 
ing, though  she  didn't  see  it  all. 

"  It  is  of  no  use,  Joshua,"  she  said,  sitting 
on  a  chair  and  leaning  her  head  on  her  hand 
disconsolately  :  "  once  lost,  you  are  done  for 
in  this  world  I  There  is  nothing  for  me  but 
the  old  way  ;  it  is  all  I  have  left ! " 


176  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

I  remember  so  well  when  she  said  this. 
The  sun  had  come  round  to  our  window ;  for 
it  was  a  summer's  evening ;  and  it  came  into 
the  room  and  fell  on  her,  as  she  sat  with 
her  bonnet  off,  and  her  fair  hair  partly  fallen 
about  her  face.  She  had  very  fine  hair,  and 
she  knew  it.  I  remember  too  that  her 
dress  was  some  kind  of  blue,  and  that  she 
looked  like  a  picture  there  is  in  the  National 
Gallery  ;  and  I  thought,  if  only  some  one  who 
could  save  her  really,  and  lift  her  up  for 
ever  out  of  the  past,  could  but  see  her  now  ! 

"  Courage,  Mary,  and  patience,"  said 
Joshua. 

"  Yes,  I  know  all  that ;  but  the  ways  and 
means  ? ''  said  Mary,  raising  her  eyes  to  him. 
"  What  can  I  do,  Joshua  ?  To  get  my  bread 
any  way  but  the  old  way  I  must  creep  into 
a  house  under  false  pretences,  and  then  be 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  177 

always  afraid  of  being  found  out ;  and  if  I 
am  found  out  I  am  sure  to  be  turned  off. 
No  one  will  have  me  who  knows  about  me, 
if  I  work  ever  so  hard,  or  try  to  do  my 
duty  ever  so  faithfully." 

"  One  failure  is  not  final,'^  said  Joshua. 
"  While  we  have  a  home,  you  have  one  too  ; 
you  are  our  sister,  remember.  Only  have 
faith,  and  as  I  said  before  courage  and 
patience;  and  beware  of  the  first  step  back  !  " 

"  Ah,  Joshua  1 "  said  Mary,  "you  are  an 
angel ! " 

"No,"  he  answered  smiling,  "I  am  only 
a  man  trying  to  live  by  principle." 

But  if  he  was  not  an  angel  he  was  not 
far  off  being  one. 

It  was  difficult  to  know  what  to  do  for 
the  best  for  Mary.  We  kept  her  for  as 
long  as  we  could,  she  doing  our  chores  for 

K*  N 


178  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

US  in  the  old  way  for  her  meat  and  room ; 
and  then  Joshua  raised  funds — I  can  scarce 
understand  how,  but  the  poorest  of  the 
people  helped,  as  well  as  the  best  off 
— and  somehow,  enouo-h  was  e^ot  too;ether 
to  establish  her  in  a  small  sweet-stuff 
shop  in  East-street  close  to  Church-court. 
To  help  her  with  the  rent  we  went  to  lodge 
with  her ;  which  suited  both  her  and  our- 
selves ;  for  you  see  we  had  got  accustomed 
to  her,  and  she  to  U;^,  and  she  knew  our 
ways,  and  was  always  good  and  helpful. 
People  talked,  of  course ;  but  then  people 
talk  al:)Out  anything,  reason  or  none,  that  is 
out  of  the  common  by  ever  so  small  a  Hue ; 
and  no  man  who  has  taken  an  independent 
path  can  escape  the  comment  of  the  crowd 
accustomed  to  only  one  way.  The  old  report 
that  we  were  living  with  a  woman  of  bad 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  179 

character  crept  about  again,  and  got  down  to 
our  dear  Cornish  homes.  You  may  be  sure 
it  made  our  mothers  bad  enough  when  they 
heard  it;  but  I  don't  think  they  quite 
believed  it,  though  they  thought  it  right  to 
send  us  a  warning,  as  if  they  did ;  and 
if  they  did,  then  they  believed  what  was 
not  true.  As  for  om^selves,  we  had  our  own 
consciences  and  Mary's  salvation  to  keep  us 
up  ;  and  with  these  it  mattered  little  what 
any  one  else  chose  to  say.  As  Joshua  said, 
we  had  not  set  out  in  our  endeavour  to 
realise  Christ  for  the  sake  of  gain,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  right ;  and  if  we  had  to 
suffer,  we  must ;  but  the  right  was  not  to  be 
abandoned  because  of  it. 


N  2 


iSo  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 


CHAPTEK  IX. 

LoED  X.,  (I  may  not  in  common  honour 
give  his  name  ;  a  man  however — so  far  I 
may  say — notorious  for  his  philanthropy  of 
an  unsteady  and  spasmodic  kind,  and  for  a 
certain  restless  curiosity  to  see  into  the 
inside  of  different  social  circles) — this  lord, 
in  his  wanderings  among  the  East-end  j)oor, 
had  come  across  Joshua  in  his  little  kingdom 
of  endeavour  in  Church-court.  And  as  no 
one  could  come  in  contact  with  him,  with- 
out feeling  that  inexplicable  charm  which  is 
inseparable  from  great  earnestness  and  self- 
devotion,  it  is  to  be  supposed  that   Lord  X. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  i8i 

among  the  rest  was  attracted  to  the  man 
as  he  was.  Or  maybe  it  was  only  a  poor 
kind  of  curiosity,  not  sympathy ;  as  I  have 
since  believed.  However  that  may  be,  he 
and  Joshua  met ;  and  a  friendship  was 
struck  up  between  them  on  the  spot.  1  use 
the  word  advisedly  ;  for  though  the  one  was 
a  peer  of  the  realm,  and  the  other  only  an 
artisan — not  learned  in  the  scholarly  way  of 
a  gentleman  ;  not  refined  in  the  same  way 
perhaps  as  a  gentleman,  so  far  as  manner 
and  little  observances  went;  a  man  speaking 
with  a  provincial  accent,  and  dressed  in 
fustian  and  coarse  clothes — yet  he  was  fit 
to  take  his  place  with  the  finest  gentleman 
in  the  land ;  and  even  the  finest  lady  would 
have  found  but  little  in  him  to  ridicule  and 
much  to  respect.  And  I  will  do  both  Lord 
and    Lady  X.    the   credit    of   sincerity    in 


i82  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

the  beginning,  when,  as  I  said,  the  friend- 
ship between  him  and  them  was  struck  up. 

Then  it  must  be  remembered,  that  Joshua 
was  one  of  the  handsomest  men  you  could 
see  in  a  long  summer  s  day  ;  a  real  man  ;  no 
sickly,  effeminate,  half- woman,  but  a  tall, 
broad-shouldered,  deep-chested  fellow,  largely 
framed,  and  with  that  calm  self-control,  that 
steady  unfeverish  energy,  which  seemed  as 
if  it  could  carry  the  world  before  it.  And 
maybe  his  good  looks  influenced  his  new 
acquaintances  in  the  beginning,  even  more 
than  they  themselves  knew.  However  that 
might  be,  they  made  up  to  him,  and  seemed 
as  though  they  would  have  been  his  best 
friends  all  through. 

"  You  want  a  background,  Mr.  Davidson," 
said  Lord  X.,  one  day  when  he  called  on 
him  at  our  lodojinii^s.     "All  human  nature 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  183 

resolves  itself  into  a  mathematical  formula ; 
a  plus  ij  represents  a  quantity  unattainable 
by  a  alone." 

*'But  what  background  can  I  get,  my 
lord  % "  returned  Joshua.  "  It  sounds  a 
strange  confession  to  make,  but  no  one  will 
work  with  me.  Sects  keep  only  to  them- 
selves or  their  affiliations  ;  and  I,  who  be- 
long to  no  sect,  am  looked  on  as  an  enemy 
by  all  because  I  am  an  enemy  to  none." 

"  Puttinof  sectarianism  aside  for  the 
moment,  you  can  do  nothing  without  the 
sanction  of  society,"  said  Lord  X.  "  No 
movement  can  succeed  which  is  not  backed 
by  men  of  birth  and  money." 

Joshua  smiled.  ''  This  remark  does  not 
apply  to  the  roots,  my  lord,  I  suppose  % " 
he  said  ;  "  only  to  the  growth  and  develop- 
ment ? " 


1 84  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

"  Oil !  "  said  Lord  X.,  carelessly,  "  a 
low  fellow  might  strike  out  an  idea,  but  it 
would  want  a  man  of  position  to  develop  it/' 

"  Well,  perhaps  you  are  right,"  Joshua 
answered.  '^  For,  after  all,  Christianity  owes 
more  to  Paul  than  to  Jesus ;  and  the  Pauline 
development  has  struck  deeper  and  spread 
wider  than  the  Christ  original." 

*'  Just  so,"  said  Lord  X. 

"The  one  being  example,  both  difficult 
to  follow  and  subversive  of  the  existing 
state  of  things;  the  other  dogma  which 
ranks  the  intellectual  acceptance  of  a  creed 
above  the  revolutionary  ethics  on  which  it 
is  based,"  said  Joshua. 

"  But,  Mr.  Davidson  I "  remonstrated 
Lord  X.,  "  surely  even  you,  enthusiast  as 
you  are,  must  acknowledge  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to.  go  back  to   the   practices   of 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  185 

early  Cliristian  times  ?  The  staff  and  the 
scrip  ^Ye^e  all  very  well  in  their  day,  Lut 
they  would  scarcely  do  now.  Society  has 
become  more  complex  and  intricate  since 
then  ;  it  would  be  out  of  all  question  to 
have  the  connnon  purse  and  live  in  the  bar- 
baric simplicity  of  apostolic  times.  Times 
change,  and  manners  with  them.'' 

"  Which  is  just  my  difficulty,  my  lord," 
said  Joshua.  "For  if  modern  society  is 
right,  then  Christ  was  wrong ;  and  we  have 
to  look  elsewhere  than  to  Him  for  a  solution 
of  our  moral  and  social  problems." 

"  I  would  not  pronounce  so  crudely  as 
that,"  said  Lord  X.  "  Say  rather  that 
a  further  development  may  reconcile  our 
differences." 

"So  be  it,  sir ;  yet  if  this  is  so,  we  are 
still  in  the  same  position  as  before,  and  the 


1 86  7 HE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

life  of  Christ,  as  related  in  the  Bible,  is  not 
the  absolute  example  for  us  to  follow." 

"  About  that  you  must  form  your  own 
opinion,"  said  Lord  X.,  with  a  certain 
cynical  indifference  not  pleasant  to  witness. 
"  What  you  may  or  may  not  believe  of  the 
Bible  is  a  question  for  yourself  alone  to 
decide  :  it  can  have  no  interest  for  any  one 
else.  What  has  an  interest,  however,  is  your 
mode  of  dealing  with  the  great  social 
problems  in  which  you  have  bestirred  your- 
self ;  and,  going  back  to  our  starting-point, 
I  say  again  that  you  can  do  nothing  if 
society  does  not  assist  you." 

Joshua  smiled  a  little  sadly.  "  And  I 
have  only  the  same  answer  to  make,  my 
lord,"  he  said.  *'  No  one  will  help  me  ;  and 
my  work,  such  as  it  is,  stands  alone." 

*'Then    I    think,  Mr.  Davidson,  that   it 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  -    187 

must  be  your  own  fault,"  said  Lord  X. 
''  There  are  liberal  denominations  to  which 
your  spirit  of  inquiry  w^ould  not  be  alien  ; 
wdiy  cannot  you  coalesce  with  them  ?  The 
Broad  Church  do  not  nail  their  colours  to 
your  old  enemy,  dogma  ;  and  the  Unitarians 
are  not  superstitious." 

"  But  the  Unitarians  above  all  demand 
respectability  of  life,"  said  Joshua.  "  Having 
abandoned  that  -wide  harbour,  the  Atone- 
ment, they  are  obliged  to  anchor  themselves 
on  morality.  My  poor  lost  sheep  would  come 
off  but  badly  before  the  rigid  tribunal  of 
Unitarian  morality  ;  and  the  Broad  Church, 
though  more  humane  perhaps,  requires  at 
the  least  repentance.  But  the  men  and 
women  I  have  to  do  with  are  without  a 
sense  of  sin — people  who  fail  again  and 
again,   and  whom  nothing  but  the   utmost 


i88  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

patience  can  ever  reclaim,  if  even  tliat 
does." 

"  Then  I  do  not  see  much  use  in  your 
attempts/'  said  Lord  X.  "I  myself  would 
do  all  I  could  to  rescue  the  poor  wretches 
one  sees  in  the  courts  and  alleys  from  the 
filth  and  misery  in  which  they  live.  But 
when  I  find  I  am  doing  no  real  good,  and 
that  they  go  wrong  again,  I  leave  them  to 
their  fate  and  mark  them  off  as  hopeless. 
You  must  draw  a  line,  Mr.  Davidson  !  For 
the  sake  of  society,  you  must  show  some 
difference  in  your  estimate  of  men.  To 
treat  the  deservino^  and  the  undeservinof 
alike  is  gross  injustice.  Some  of  these 
wretches  are  more  like  brutes  than  men.  I 
would  clear  them  all  out  like  rats  ;  and  with 
no  more  compunction  than  if  they  were  rats." 

"I  do  not  agree   with  you,  my  lord.     I 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  189 

believe  that  more  harm  has  been  done  by 
condemnation  than  ever  wonld  come  through 
tolerance.  By  love  alone  can  the  world  l)e 
saved/' 

-Love?  Pvubbish  !"  said  Lord  X.  "The 
laws  nnistbe  obeyed,  and  society  supported." 

"  Only  in  so  far  as  it  is  just,"  put  in 
J  oshua. 

"  If  by  just  you  mean  equality,  pardon 
me  if  1  say  that  you  talk  nonsense,"  said 
Lord  X.  "  You  might  as  well  say  that 
nature  is  unjust,  because  a  grove  of  oaks 
needs  more  space  than  a  roAv  of  turnips, 
as  that  man  is  to  blame  because  he 
has  lifted  himself  into  classes  of  w^hich  the 
superiors  have  more  than  the  inferiors.  If 
it  had  not  been  for  this  inj  ustice,  as  you  call 
it,  we  should  never  have  had  a  superior  class 
at   all,  and  the  world  would  have  o;one  on 


I90  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

for  ever  in  one  dead  level  of  mediocrity, 
where  no  one  shone,  and  no  one  was 
obscured." 

"  Granted,"  said  Joshua.  '^  But  you  having 
developed  into  stars  and  suns,  what  we 
want  is,  that  you  should  help  the  poor  dark 
spheres  on  the  same  way." 

Lord  X.  laughed.  "  I  doubt  the  power 
and  I  question  the  wisdom  of  that,"  he  said. 
"  Help  them  to  be  cleanly  and  virtuous  and 
content  with  their  natural  position,  if  you 
like  ;  but  I  for  one  do  not  go  further." 

"And  Christ  and  history  do,  my  lord," 
said  Joshua. 

"  Mr.  Davidson,  you  are  incorrigible  ! " 
said  Lord  X.,  jocularly  ;  "  but  happily 
your  opinions  do  not  vitiate  your  good 
works,  and  I  will  help  you  in  these  where 
I  can." 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  191 

"  Thank  you,  my  lord,"  said  Joshua 
simply  :  "  I  shall  hold  you  to  your  promise. 
And  yet  you  must  understand  that  I  hope 
far  more  from  the  union  and  ors^anization  of 
the  working  classes  together,  than  from  any 
extraneous  aid  whatever ;  only  w^e  take  all 
kinds." 

"  In  w^hich  you  are  wise,''  said  Lord  X., 
drily.  ''  You  would  get  on  but  poorly  among 
yourselves  I  fancy,  if  it  were  not  for  Us." 

Joshua  did  not  answer.  He  said  after- 
wards that,  having  made  his  declaration 
honestly,  he  felt  it  would  have  been  un- 
generous to  have  carried  the  conversation 
further  on  that  line.  While  accepting  my 
lord's  help  it  was  scarcely  the  thing  to  de- 
preciate it ;  so  the  talk  then  drifted  or  rather 
settled  on  all  that  he  had  been  doing  in 
Church-court  and  the  neighbourhood — on  his 


192  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

night-school,  his  charities,  his  hospitality  to 
thieves  and  the  like  ;  and  the  results  ;  those 
whom  he  might  fairly  count  as  his  successes, 
with  those  who  had  been  as  yet  his  failures. 
He  never  allowed  more  than  this  "  as  yet." 
*'  While  there  is  a  gate  open  to  them,  there  is 
always  the  hope  that  they  will  enter  in  by 
it,"  he  used  to  say.  "  What  men  are  taught 
of  Christ  in  heaven — that  no  shame,  no  dis- 
grace, no  sin  can  make  Him  turn  away 
His  face  from  those  who  seek  Him — 
so  ought  they  to  find  here  on  earth  in 
human  pity  and  human  love.  If  we  were 
more  patient,  we  should  have  more  power 
over  each  other,  and  there  would  be  fewer 
failures." 

"  You  mean,  if  we  were  gods  we  should  act 
in  a  godlike  manner,"  said  Lord  X.,  with  that 
curious  mixture  of  cynicism  and  philanthropy, 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  193 

kindness  and  satire,  earnestness  and  levity, 
that  characterised  him. 

"  No,"  Joshua  answered  ;  "  I  mean  only 
that,  if  we  did  our  best  possible  as  men,  we 
should  make  a  better  job  of  life  altogether 
both  for  ourselves  individually  and  for  the 
world  at  large." 

"  You  must  come  and  see  me,  Mr.  Da\dd- 
son,"  said  Lord  X.,  suddenly  rising  and 
drawing  on  his  gloves.  ''  Lady  X.  will  be 
charmed  to  see  you,  I  am  sure.  She  is  im- 
mensely interested  in  all  sorts  of  social  ques- 
tions, and  I  shall  be  delighted  to  present 
you.  You  will  be  a  new  reading  to  her,"  he 
added,  and  smiled. 

"  I  will  come  and  be  read,"  said  Joshua ; 
"  and  I  hope  to  a  good  end.  If  I  can  in- 
terest you,  and  your  friends  through  you,  my 
lord,  I  shall  have  done  somethinor." 


194  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

This  was  the  first  time  that  I  had  seen 
Joshua  really  elated  with  hope  of  help  from 
the  outside.  He  knew  that  Lord  X.  was 
a  man  of  immense  wealth,  and  that  he  could, 
if  he  would,  do  wonders  for  his  poor  friends. 
But  he  did  not  know  how  shallow  his 
philanthropic  zeal  was ;  how  much  more  a 
matter  of  mere  amusement  than  of  vital 
principle.  His  work  among  the  poor  was 
the  work  of  a  superior ;  and  his  estimate  of 
his  own  class,  and  therefore  of  himself  as  a 
peer,  was  so  curiously  great,  that  he  thought 
his  very  presence  among  them  ought  to 
prove  a  kind  of  loalm  and  moral  styptic  to 
all  their  wounds.  He  was  willing^  to  orive 
when  the  fit  took  him  ;  but  he  would  have 
resented  the  doctrine  of  duty,  or  the  right 
to  take.  The  poor  Avere  as  curious  specimens 
to  him.     He  never  regarded  them  as  men 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  195 

and  women  like  himself  and  his  class.  He 
scarcely  gave  them  credit  for  ordinary  human 
feeling  even ;  for  he  used  to  say  that  affections 
and  nerves  ay  ere  both  matters  of  education 
and  refinement,  a.nd  that  the  uneducated  and 
unrefined  neither  loved  nor  felt  as  the  others. 
Perhaps  he  was  right.  I  am  not  physiologist 
enouo'h  to  know  much  about  nerves  and 
pain  and  the  difference  of  education,  so  far 
as  that  g;oes  :  but  I  think  I  have  seen  as 
much  real  affection,  as  much  passionate  self- 
abandoning,  self-sacrificing  love  among  the 
poor  as  there  is  among  the  rich.  It  may  be 
more  uncouth,  its  demonstration  more  simple 
too,  and  less  elegantly  expressed,  but  it  is 
there  all  the  same,  and  maybe  in  fuller 
quantity  than  with  fashionable  folks  who 
really  seem  too  idle  and  dispersed  to  be  ablt? 
to  love  with  either  vio^our  or  concentration. 

o 

o  2 


196  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

Furtliermore,  pliilantliropy  to  Lord  X. 
was  an  occupation  and  a  reputation.  He 
had  no  turn  for  abstract  politics,  no  head  for 
diplomacy,  no  taste  for  literature  ;  he  was 
not  an  artist  nor  a  mechanician,  but  he  was 
ambitious,  and  he  liked  distinction.  So, 
dabbling  among  the  poor,  and  touching  the 
grave  social  problems  besetting  them  deli- 
cately, following  them  to  their  haunts  and 
relieving  their  immediate  distress,  pleased 
both  his  kind  heart  and  his  vanity ;  and  he 
did  substantial  good  of  a  fragmentary  kind, 
if  his  motives  would  scarce  bear  severe 
scrutiny. 

For  myself  I  did  not  augur  much  from 
the  association.  Less  spiritual  and  less 
single-minded  than  my  friend,  I  could  also 
judge  better  than  he  of  his  own  power  of 
fascination.      Hence   I   could    discern   more 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  197 

clearly  than  he,  how  much  of  Lord  X/s 
offer  of  help  was  the  genuine  movement  of 
his  own  soul,  and  how  much  was  due  to  the 
curiosity  and  amusement  which  the  study  of 
a  life  and  character  at  once  so  fresh  and 
whole-hearted  as  his  awakened  and  pro- 
mised. But  it  was  not  for  me  to  speak,  or 
throw  cold  water  on  what  might  turn  out  to 
be  such  a  l30on  to  the  cause.  If  Joshua  had 
\Yanted  my  advice,  he  would  have  asked  it. 
As  he  did  not  ask  it,  I  considered  him  best 
able  to  judge  for  himself.  And  yet  some- 
times I  have  been  sorry  that  I  did  not 
speak. 


198  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 


CHAPTER  X. 


This  was  Joshua's  first  introduction  into  a 
wealthy  house  of  the  upper  classes  ;  and  from 
the  retinue  of  servants  in  their  gorgeous 
liveries  thronging  the  hall,  to  the  little  lap- 
dog  on  its  velvet  cushion,  the  luxury  and 
lavishness  he  saw  everywhere  almost  stupified 
him.  To  a  man  earning,  say  some  twenty- 
five  shillino;s  a  week,  and  livino-  on  less  than 
half — sharing  with  those  poorer  than  himself, 
and  content  to  go  short  that  others  mio;ht 
be  satisfied  —  the  revelation  of  Lord  X/s 
house  was  a  sharp  and  positive  pain.  The 
starvation  he,  the  nobleman,  had  seen  in  his 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  199 

wanderings  —  starvation  in  all  probability 
relieved  for  to-day ;  but  to-morrow  and 
the  day  after  and  for  all  future  time,  till  the 
pauper's  grave  closed  over  all  ? — and  then 
had  come  back  to  an  abundance,  a  fasti- 
diousness, of  which  the  very  refuse  would 
have  been  salvation  to  hundreds  ;  the  mise- 
rable dwellings  he  visited,  mere  styes  of 
filth,  immodesty,  and  vice,  where  the  seeds 
of  physical  disease  and  moral  corruption  are 
sown  broadcast  and  from  earliest  infancy — 
and  then  returned  to  a  dwelling  like  a  fairy 
palace,  where  every  nook  and  corner  was 
perfect,  redolent  of  all  kinds  of  sweetness 
and  loveliness — to  a  man  of  the  people  like 
Joshua,  fairly  oppressive  in  its  richness  and 
grandeur;  the  gaunt  and  famine-wasted  men 
and  women  and  children  that  he  had  so 
often  met,  the  little  ones  brutally  treated, 


200  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

half  starved,  sworn  at,  and  knocked  about, 
swarming  througli  reeking  courts  and  alleys 
where  the  very  air  of  heaven  was  poisonous — 
and  the  lady's  lap-dog,  with  its  dainty  food, 
its  tender  care,  well  washed,  combed,  curled, 
scented,  adorned,  on  a  velvet  footstool,  a  toy 
bought  for  it  to  play  with  :  and  that  man 
and  that  woman — this  lord  and  lady — were 
professing  Christians,  went  regularly  to 
church,  believed  that  Christ  was  very  God, 
and  that  every  w^ord  of  the  Bible  was  in- 
spired !  It  w^as  habit ;  but  at  first  sight  it 
looked  incomprehensible  to  one  who  lived 
among  the  poor,  and  was  of  them. 

Lady  X.  soon  came  into  the  room  where 
Joshua  and  Lord  X.  were.  She  was  a  tall, 
fair,  languid  woman,  kindly  natured  but 
selfish,  dissatisfied  with  her  life  as  it  was  yet 
unable  to  devise  anything  better  for  herself ; 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  201 

having  no  interest  anywhere,  without  chil- 
dren, and  evidently  not  as  much  in  love  with 
her  husband  as  model  wives  usually  are  :  a 
woman  whose  intelligence  and  physique 
clashed,  the  one  being  restless  and  the  other 
indolent.  Every  now  and  then  she  took  up 
her  husband's  ''  cases,"  partly  out  of  com- 
plaisance to  him,  partly  from  profound 
weariness  with  her  life,  and  also  from  the 
natural  kind-heartedness  wdaich  made  her 
like  to  do  good-natured  things  and  to  give 
pleasure  to  others.  But  she  soon  abandoned 
them  and  set  them  adrift.  She  was  a  woman 
with  great  curiosity  but  no  tenacity ;  full 
of  a  soft  sensual  kind  of  passion  that  led 
her  into  danger  as  much  from  idleness  as 
from  vice ;  she  loved  out  of  idleness,  and 
worked  out  of  idleness.  It  was  a  gain  to 
her  to  be  interested  in  anything — whether  it 


202  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

was  the  fashion  of  the  day  or  the  salvation 
of  a  human  soul ;  but  there  was  no  spirit  of 
self-sacrifice  in  her,  and  she  would  have  con- 
sidered it  an  impertinence  if  she  had  been 
asked  to  do  a  hair's-breadth  more  than  she 
desired  of  her  own  free-will.  Had  she  been 
born  poor,  she  might  have  been  a  grand 
woman  ;  as  she  was,  she  was  just  a  fine  lady 
whose  nobler  nature  was  stifled  under  the 
weight  of  idleness  and  luxury. 

But  she  liked  Joshua,  and  took  to  him 
kindly. 

She  gave  him  at  that  first  interview 
a  really  handsome  sum  of  money  for  his 
poorer  friends  ;  she  promised  clothes  and 
soup-tickets,  books  for  his  school,  toys  for 
his  children,  good  food  for  his  sick.  The 
simple  yet  so  grand  earnestness  of  the  man 
interested    her,  and  she  too   felt  as    every 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  203 

one  else  did,  that  here  was  a  master-spirit 
which  had  a  chiim  to  all  men's  reverence  and 
admiration.  She  was  not  satisfied  with  this 
first  visit,  but  Joshua  must  go  to  see  her 
again  ;  and  after  he  had  been  there  twice, 
she  of  herself  offered  to  come  and  see  him  in 
his  lodgings,  over  the  little  sweet-stuff  shop 
which  ]\lary  Prinsep  kept.  And  Joshua  did 
not  forbid  her. 

Was  there  ever  such  an  incongruity  ?  The 
street — East-street — in  which  we  lived,  was 
too  narrow  for  her  carriage  to  come  down,  so 
she  had  to  walk  the  distance  to  Joshua's 
rooms.  And  I  shall  never  forget  the  sight. 
Her  dainty  feet  were  clothed  in  satin  on 
which  glittered  buckles  that  looked  like  dia- 
monds ;  her  dress  was  of  apple-blossom- 
coloured  silk  that  trailed  behind  her ;  her 
bonnet  seemed  to  be  just  a  feather  and  a 


204  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

veil ;  she  wore  some  lidit  lace  thino;  about 
her  that  looked  like  a  cloud  more  than  a 
fabric  ;  and  her  arms  and  neck  were  covered 
with  chains  and  lockets  and  bracelets.  She 
was  like  a  fairy  cjueen  among  the  gnomes 
and  blackamoors  of  an  underground  mine, 
like  a  sweet-scented  rose-bush  in  the  midst 
of  a  refuse  heap  as  she  came  picking 
her  way  with  courage,  but  witli  exaggerated 
delicacy,  her  footman  in  his  blue  and  silver 
at  her  back,  and  the  mob  of  the  street 
staring,  too  much  astonished  at  such  an  ap- 
parition to  jeer. 

When  she  came  into  the  little  shop  and 
asked  for  Joshua,  I  was  standing  in  the 
doorway  (it  was  on  a  Sunday)  between  the 
shop  and  Mary's  back  room  ;  and  for  the 
first  time  I  saw  Mary  in  an  ugly  light.  She 
turned  quite  white  as  the  lady  came  in,  and 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  205 

instead  of  answering,  looked  round  to  me 
with  an  agony  in  her  face  that  was  inde- 
scribable. 

"  Yes,  madam,"  I  said  coming  forward ; 
"  he  is  up-stairs." 

"  Do  you  want  him,  ma'am  ? ''  then  asked 
Mary,  the  look  of  pain  still  in  her  large 
fixed  eyes ;  and  I  thought  that  the  lady, 
looking  at  her — for  Mary  was  young  and 
very  pretty,  as  I  have  said — looked  uneasy 
too.     At  all  events,  she  looked  haughty. 

"  Yes,"  she  said ;  but  she  turned  and 
spoke  to  me,  not  to  Mary.  "  Have  the  good- 
ness to  tell  him  that  Lady  X.  wants  to 
speak  to  him." 

I  ran  upstairs  and  told  him  ;  and  Joshua, 
without  changing  his  countenance  one  whit, 
as  if  lords  and  ladies  in  gorgeous  array  were 
our  natural  visitors  and  what  we  were  used 


2o6  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

to  every  day,  came  down  and  greeted  the 
lady  as  lie  would  have  greeted  the  baker's 
wife — neither  more  nor  less  respectfully  ; 
which  means,  that  he  was  respectful  to 
every  one. 

Lady  X.  made  a  step  forward  when  he 
came  into  the  shop,  and  the  blood  flew 
over  her  face  as  she  gave  him  her  hand. 

"  Now,  you  must  let  me  see  where  you 
live,  and  how  you  do  such  wonders,"  she 
said,  with  the  most  undefinable  but  unmis- 
takable accent  of  coaxing  in  the  voice. 

And  Joshua  saying  quietly;  "Are  you  not 
too  fine  to  come  up  our  stairs.  Lady  X.  ? 
— we  do  our  best  to  kee23  them  clean, 
Mary,  don't  we  ?  but  they  are  not  used  to 
such-like  feet  on  them  ;  "  gave  her  his  hand 
smiling. 

"  They  will  be  used  to  mine,  I  hope,  often," 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  207 

said  my  lady  kindly.  *'  You  know  I  have 
taken  a  great  interest  in  your  work,  Mr. 
Davidson,  and  I  am  going  to  help  where 
I  can." 

"  If  you  will  come  this  way  then,  my 
lady,  I  will  show  you  all  I  have  on  hand  at 
the  present  moment,"  said  Joshua  moving 
towards  the  stairs. 

And  again  the  lady  blushed  ;  and  her  long 
silk  skirts  trailed  behind  her  with  a  curious 
rustling;  noise  :  and  we  heard  her  lio-ht  boot- 
heels  go  tap,  tap,  up  the  stairs,  and  her 
chains  and  trinkets  jingle. 

Then  Mary  turned  to  me,  and  said  with 
a  ^nld  kind  of  look  ;  "  John  !  John  !  she  is 
here  for  no  good  !  She  will  harm  more  than 
she  helps.  What  call  has  she  to  come  here  ? 
who  wants  her  ?  She  will  only  do  us  all  a 
mischief  I" 


2o8  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

She  turned  her  face  to  the  window  and 
burst  into  tears. 

"  Mary  1  what  ails  you  ?  "  I  said, 
vaguely ;  for  I  was  shocked,  and  did  not 
rightly  understand  her.  I  seemed  to  feel 
something  I  could  not  give  a  name  to — a 
pain  and  a  queer  kind  of  doubt ;  but  indeed 
it  was  all  chaotic,  and  all  I  knew  was  that 
I  was  sorry.  "  You  know,"  I  went  on 
trying  to  comfort  her,  "  that  money  and 
worldly  influence  at  Joshua's  back  would 
give  him  all  he  wants.  His  hands  are  so 
weak  now  for  want  of  both  these  things. 
Why  should  we  be  sorry,  dear,  that  he  has 
the  chance  of  them  ? " 

"  She  has  come  for  no  good  !  "  was  all  that 
Mary  would  say  ;  and  I  could  only  wonder 
at  an  outburst  unlike  anything  T  had  ever 
seen  before. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  209 

My  lady  stayed  a  long  time  upstairs,  and 
poor  Mary's  agony  during  her  visit  never 
relaxed.  At  last  she  came  down,  flushed  and 
radiant.  Her  eyes  were  softer  and  darker, 
her  face  looked  younger  and  more  tender  ; 
she  even  glanced  kindly  at  me  as  she  passed 
me,  saying  to  Joshua  in  a  voice  as  sweet  as 
a  silver  bell ;  "  And  this  is  the  John  you  have 
been  telling  me  about  ? — he  looks  a  good 
fellow  ! — and  is  this  Mary  ? "  but  she  was 
not  quite  so  tender  to  Mary  ;  and  she  added, 
in  rather  a  displeased  tone  of  voice  ;  "  Girl ! 
you  look  very  young  to  keep  house  by 
yourself,  and  have  young  men  lodgers  !  " 

"  Ah,  my  lady,  you  forget  that  our  girls 
have  not  the  care  taken  of  them  that  yours 
have,"  said  Joshua  gently.  "  So  soon  as 
a    girl    of   ours    can    get    her    living,    L;he 

does." 

p 


2IO  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

"  Well,  I  hope  that  Mary  will  be  a  good 
girl,  and  do  you  credit,"  said  my  lady 
coldly. 

She  shook  hands  then  with  Joshua,  but, 
with  her  hand  still  in  his,  turned  to  him  and, 
with  the  sweetest  smile  I  have  ever  seen  on 
woman's  face,  said  in  the  same  strange  ca- 
ressing way ;  ''  I  must  ask  you  to  be  kind 
enough  to  take  me  to  my  carriage,  Mr. 
Davidson.  I  think  my  footman  must  have 
gone  to  keep  the  coachman  company ;  and  I 
should  scarcely  like  to  go  down  the  street 
alone." 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  Joshua,  and  led  her, 
still  holding  her  hand,  out  from  the  shop 
and  into  the  little  street  to  where  her  car- 
riao;e  was  waitinoj  for  her. 

"  Mind  the  shop  for  me,  John,"  said 
Mary ;    and    with    a   great    sob     she    ran 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  211 

away    and    shut    herself    up    in    her    own 
room. 

She  would  have  been  ashamed  I  know,  to 
let  Joshua  see  that  she  was  crying,  and  all 
for  nothing,  too  ;  only  because  a  fine  lady, 
smelling  of  sweet  scents  and  wearing  a  rich 
silk  gown,  had  passed  through  the  shop. 

As  for  him,  he  came  back  without  a  ruffle 
on  his  quiet,  mild  face.  There  was  no  flush 
of  gratified  vanity  on  it;  nothing  but  just 
that  inward,  absorbed  look,  that  look  of 
peace  and  love  which  beautified  him  at  all 
times.  As  he  passed  through,  he  looked 
round  for  Mary  ;  but  I  told  him  she  was 
bad  with  her  head;  and  as  this  had  the 
efi'ect  of  sending  him  into  her  room  to  look 
after  her,  poor  Mary's  attempt  at  conceal- 
ment came  to  nothing.     But  I  don't  think 

Joshua  found  out  why  she  Vvas  crying. 

p  2 


212  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

Many  a  day  after  this  my  lady's  carriage 
came  to  the  entrance  of  our  wretched  street, 
and  my  lady  herself,  like  a  radiant  vision, 
picked  her  way  among  garbage  and  ruffian- 
ism down  to  the  little  sweet-stuff  shop 
where  ha'pennyworths  of  "  buUs'-eyes  "  were 
sold  to  young  chiklren  by  a  girl  who  had 
once  been  a  street-walker,  and  where  the 
upstairs  rooms  were  tenanted  by  two  jour- 
neymen carpenters.  It  was  an  anomaly  that 
could  not  last ;  but  the  very  sharpness 
of  the  contrast  gave  it  interest  in  her 
eyes;  and  while  the  novelty  continued 
it  was  like  a  scene  out  of  a  play  in 
which  she  was  the  heroine.  So,  at  least,  I 
judged  her ;  and  the  more  I  think  of  the 
whole  affair,  the  more  sure  I  feel  that  I  am 
right. 

And    then  Joshua's   handsome   face   and 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  213 

dignity  of  look  and  manner  might  count  for 
something. 

She  (the  hidy)  Tras  truly  good  and  helpful 
to  Joshua  all  the  time  this  fad  of  hers 
lasted ;  for  that  it  was  only  a  fad,  without 
stability  or  roots,  the  sequel  proved.  She 
brouglit  him  clothes  and  money,  and  seemed 
ready  to  do  all  she  could  for  him.  He  had 
only  to  tell  her  that  he  wanted  such  and 
such  help,  and  she  gave  it,  aye,  like  a 
princess  ! 

What  took  place  between  them  neither 
I  nor  any  one  can  say.  Joshua  never  opened 
his  lips  on  the  subject ;  and  after  that  day,  by 
tacit  consent  all  round,  the  name  of  Lord  and 
Lady  X.  was  a  dead  letter  among  us.  All 
I  know  is,  that  one  day,  when  she  had  come 
down  to  our  place  as  so  often  now,  my  lady, 
flushed,  haughty,  trembling  too,  but  changed 


214  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

sonieliow,  with  a  sad,  disordered  face  instead 
of  the  half-sleepy  sweetness  usual  to  it,  came 
downstairs — not  this  time  holding  Joshua's 
hand ;  he  following  her,  pale  and  troubled- 
looking  ;  that  she  passed  through  the  little 
shop  quickly  and  impatiently,  with  never  a 
glance  towards  Mary  or  me ;  that  at  the 
door  she  turned  round,  and  said  sharply  ; 
"  You  need  not  give  yourself  the  trouble, 
Mr.  Davidson,  to  come  with  me — I  can  find 
my  way  alone  ;  "  and  that  Joshua  answered 
with  more  tenderness  and  humility  of  tone 
and  manner  than  I  had  ever  seen  or  heard 
in  him  before ;  "  My  lady,  I  must  disobey 
you  :  I  cannot  let  you  go  through  the  street 
alone."  And  that  he  followed  her  out,  bare- 
headed, but  at  a  little  distance  from  her — 
not  beside  her. 

This  was  the  last  time  we  saw  her ;  nor 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  215 

did  Lord  X.  keep  up  any  association  with 
my  friend.  And  I  heard  afterwards,  quite 
accidentally,  that  he  had  said  soon  after 
this,  he  really  '^  could  not  countenance  that 
man  "Davidson  :  he  was  too  offensively  radi- 
cal in  his  opinions,  and  a  presuming  fellow 
besides/' 

But  word  came  to  us  both  that  my  lady 
had  found  out  all  about  Mary,  and  that  she 
had  expressed  herself  insulted  and  revolted  at 
Joshua's  allowing  her  to  enter  a  house  kept 
by  such  a  creature. 

"  It  was  all  very  well  to  be  compassionate 
and  helpful,"  she  had  said  ;  *'  but  no  amount 
of  charity  justified  that  man  Davidson  in 
his  proceedings  with  such  a  woman.  Or, 
if  he  chose  to  associate  with  her  himself,  he 
ought  to  have  warned  her  (her  ladyship), 
that   she    should  not  have  made   the   mis- 


2i6  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OB 

take  of  speaking  to  her  as  to  a  proper 
person." 

So  tins  first  and  Last  attempt  at  aristo- 
cratic co-operation  fell  to  the  ground  ;  and 
Society  peremptorily  refused  to  endorse  a 
man  who  had  set  himself  to  live  the  life 
after  Christ. 

If  Joshua  was  sorry  for  the  loss  he  had  so 
mysteriously  sustained,  poor  JMary  was  not. 
All  during  the  lady's  visits  she  had  drooped 
and  pined,  till  I  thought  she  was  in  a  bad 
way,  and  going  to  be  worse.  Ah  !  this  was 
a  bitter  time  to  me,  for  I  loved  her  like  my 
own ;  and  I  loved  Joshua  and  his  work  and 
his  life  better  than  my  own  life  ;  and  I  was 
perplexed,  and  in  a  manner  torn  to  pieces, 
among  so  many  feelings.  But  she  revived 
after  the  day  when  the  lady  passed  through 
the    shop    with  her    sad,  proud,   disordered 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  217 

face,  and  when  Joshua  came  back  from 
seeing  her  to  her  carriage,  like  a  man  who 
has  had  a  blow  and  is  still  dazed  by  it. 
She  waited  on  him  after  this,  more  assidu- 
ously than  ever.  She  seemed  to  live  only 
to  please  him.  The  place  was  the  very  per- 
fection of  cleanliness.  Even  my  lady's 
palace  could  not  have  been  more  wholesome 
or  more  pure.  The  squalor  of  the  shell,  so 
to  speak,  and  the  poverty  of  the  inside,  was 
concealed  or  made  to  be  forgotten  by  the 
exquisite  neatness  and  cleanliness  with  which 
it  was  all  kept; -and  when  Joshua's  counte- 
nance came  l)ack  again,  as  it  did  after 
awhile,  to  its  usual  sweet  serenity,  Mary's 
also  came  to  its  peace,  and  the  cloud  that 
had  hung  over  it  like  a  distemper  passed 
away. 

"  It  will  not  do,  John !"  he  said  to  me  one 


2i8  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

day,  some  time  after :  "  for  the  aristocracy 
to  come  down  to  the  poor  is  a  mistake. 
They  are  different  creatures  altogether,  with 
diflferent  laws  of  honour  and  morality  among 
themselves  from  what  we  know  anything 
about.  And  the  gulf  is  too  wide  to  be 
bridged  over  by  just  one  here,  and  another 
there,  coming  like  the  old  Israelitish  spies 
among  us,  to  see  the  nakedness  of  the  land. 
They  do  a  little  good  for  the  time,  but  it  is 
good  that  bears  no  blessing  with  it,  and  is 
not  lasting.  We  must  work  up  by  ourselves 
into  a  state  nearer  to  them  in  material  o-ood  ; 
but  not,"  he  added,  as  if  by  an  after-thought, 
"  in  looseness  of  principle.  That,  however, 
has  come  only  from  idleness ;  and  if  great 
people  had  imperative  duties  and  the  abso- 
lute need  of  exertion,  we  should  hear  of 
fewer   divorce    scandals,    fewer   turf    catas- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  219 

trophes,  and  the  like,  than  we  do  now. 
However,  that  is  not  our  affair.  We  are 
here  to  work  on  our  own  account,  not  to 
judge  of  others.'' 

"  It  is  an  old  saying,  Joshua,  but  a  true 
one,  '  extremes  meet,'  "  said  I.  ''  The  very 
poor  have  no  taste  for  refined  j^leasure,  and 
indeed  no  power  of  indulging  it  if  they 
had  ;  and  the  very  rich,  sated  with  all  that  is 
given  to  them  by  their  position,  devise  new 
excitements  of  an  ignoble  kind.  I  sujDpose 
that  is  something  like  it  ?  " 

"I  suppose  so,"  he  answered.  "At  all 
events,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  level- 
ling down.  It  would  be  no  righteousness  to 
bring  the  rich,  the  refined,  the  well  educated 
down  to  the  level  of  the  poor ;  but  to  raise 
up  the  masses,  and  to  impose  on  the  upper 
classes  positive  duties,  this  is  the  only  way 


220  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

in  which  the  difference  between  high  and 
low  can  be  lessened.  And  if  this  can  be 
done  free  of  national  revolt  and  bloodshed, 
it  will  be  a  godlike  work,  and  the  blessed 
solution  of  the  greatest  difficulty  the  world 
has  seen  yet.  It  cannot  be  a  good  thing 
that  some  men  have  to  work  till  all  the 
strength  of  intellect  is  worked  out  of  them, 
while  others  are  lapped  in  such  idleness  that 
all  theirs  is  either  bemused  and  stagnated, 
or  turned  to  evil  issues  for  want  of  being 
wholesomely  used.  Come  how  it  may,  it 
has  to  come — this  more  equal  distribution  of 
the  better  thino-s  of  life.  I  do  not  mean 
that  the  duchess  will  have  to  share  her  vel- 
vet cushions  with  the  seamstress;  but  it  has 
to  be  that,  either  by  education  or  improved 
machinery,  or  both,  there  will  not  be  the 
enormous  difference  there  is  now  between  the 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  221 

duchess  and  the  seamstress.  We  have  made 
a  great  parade  lately  of  our  sympathy  with 
the  North,  on  the  ground  of  emancipation; 
but  Society  here  in  London  holds  slaves  as 
arbitrarily  and  as  cruelly  as  ever  the  Southern 
planters  did  ;  and  its  vested  interests,  how- 
ever demoralising,  are  as  sacred  to  us  as 
were  the  vested  interests  of  the  planter  to 
him.  I  will  never  again  try  a  fraternal 
union  with  a  rich  house.  When  the  working- 
men  have  their  political  and  social  rights, 
and  have  utilised  their  leisure  to  refine  and 
elevate,  to  beautify  and  adorn,  their  lives, 
then,  when  we  are  radically  equal,  we  can 
meet  as  men  and  brothers.  As  we  are  now, 
we  are  experiments  to  some,  mere  tem- 
porary amusements  to  others,  inferiors  to 
all ;  and  we  pin  our  faith  to  a  straw — 
hang     our    golden    hopes    on    gossamer  — 


222  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

when  we  look  for  vital    co-operation   from 

them." 

"  I  thouo-lit  Joshua  would  find  her  out  in 
time,"  was  Mary's  comment.  ''  I  took  stock 
of  her  from  the  first,  and  saw  she  was  no 
good." 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  223 


CHAPTER  XL 

I  HAVE  said  so  much  of  the  personal 
charities  of  Joshua  that  I  seem  to  have 
thrown  into  the  shade,  by  comparison,  his 
political  life  and  action ;  and  yet  this  was 
the  more  important  of  the  two.  The  extreme 
section  of  republican  working  men,  though 
they  did  not  go  in  for  his  religious  views, 
made  use  of  his  political  zeal ;  and  when 
w^ork  was  bad  to  get,  sometimes  he  was  sent 
as  a  delegate,  sometimes  he  went  of  his  own 
accord,  to  the  various  towns  that  needed 
either  encouragement  or  awakening ;  where 
he  gave  lectures  on  the  necessity  of  labour 


224  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

keeping  a  close  front  against  the  serried 
ranks  of  capital ;  on  the  lawfulness  and  de- 
sirability of  trades'  unions  and  strikes,  when 
occasion  demands ;  on  the  political  w^orth 
of  a  republic  that  grows  naturally  out 
of  monarchy  and  oligarchy,  as  manhood 
grows  out  of  childhood ;  on  the  need  of  the 
working  classes  raising  themselves  to  a 
higher  level  in  mind  and  circumstance  than 
that  which  they  occupy  now ;  on  the 
beauty  of  social  and  moral  freedom  ;  and  on 
the  right  of  each  man  to  a  fair  share  of  the 
primary  essentials  for  good  living.  And  all 
this  was  mixed  up  with  that  fervid  prac- 
tical Christianity  of  his,  which  gave  a  new 
and  holier  aspect  to  every  question  he 
handled. 

Joshua  believed  in  the  religion  of  politics. 
He    often    said  that,  were   Christ   to   come 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  225 

again  in  this  day,  He  would  be  more  of 
a  politician  tlian  a  theologian ;  and  that  He 
would  teach  men  to  work  for  the  coming  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth,  rather 
through  the  general  elevation  of  the  material 
condition  of  the  masses  than  by  either  ritual 
or  dogma, 

''  You  can't  make  a  man  a  saint  in  mind," 
I  have  heard  him  say  more  than  once, 
"  when  you  keep  him  like  a  beast  in  body  ;  " 
and  "  higher  wages,  better  food,  better  lodg- 
ment, and  better  education  will  do  more  to 
make  men  real  Christians  than  all  the 
churches  ever  built." 

No  man  was  more  convinced  than  he 
that  sin  and  misery  are  the  removable  results 
of  social  circumstances,  and  that  poverty, 
ignorance,  and  class-distinctions  consequent, 
are  at  the  root  of  all  the  crimes  and  wretched- 


226  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OE 

ness  afloat.  The  evil  lying  in  tliat  great 
curse  of  partial  civilisation — that  upas  tree 
of  caste — by  which  this  Christian  world  of 
ours,  with  its  religion  of  brotherhood  and 
socialism,  is  overshadowed,  pained  him  most 
of  all.  The  caste  of  the  rich,  with  its  pro- 
duct, the  class  antagonism  of  the  poor — 
what  a  sorry  satire  on  the  religion  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  thtiL  poor,  unlearned 
man  of  the  people,  whom  we  have  ex- 
alted into  God  and  now  worship  with 
gorgeous  ceremonial,  while  despising  every 
one  of  the  social  doctrines  He  and  His 
disciples  preached  !  However,  Joshua  did 
his  best  to  rouse  men  to  a  consciousness  of 
Christ,  and  to  the  acceptance  of  His  teaching 
of  human  equality  ;  and  though  steadily  op- 
posed to  all  doctrines  of  violence,  was  always 
tlie  passionate   upholder  of  the   doctrine  of 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  227 

duty  on  the  one  side  and  tlie  theory  of  rights 
on  the  other. 

He  had  often  a  sore  time  of  it.  His 
discourses  roused  immense  antagonism,  and 
he  was  sometimes  set  upon  and  severely 
handled  by  the  men  to  whom  he  spoke.  I 
have  seen  him  left  for  dead  twice  in  the 
rough  monarchical  towns.  But  he  worked  as 
the  Master  had  worked  before  him  ;  simply 
changing  the  methods  to  be  more  in  harmony 
with  the  times ;  going  on  his  way  calm,  un- 
shaken, cheerful,  ever  ready  to  face  the 
worst  and  take  what  danger  might  arise 
without  blenching  ;  of  a  steadfast  heart  and 
a  loyal  spirit;  looking  up  to  God,  living  after 
Christ,  and  loving  the  humanity  that  black- 
guarded and  nearly  killed  him  as  his  reward. 
Tears  are  in  my  eyes,  rough  man  as  I  am, 
when  I  remember  Joshua  Davidson,  his  life 

Q  2 


2  28  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

and  T\^orks,  and  what  the  world  he  lived  but 
to  better  said  of  him  and  did  to  him.  I 
have  known  swindlers  and  nmrderers  more 
gently  entreated.  Of  a  truth,  the  age  of 
martyrs  has  not  passed  away ;  as  any  one 
may  prove  in  his  own  person  who  will  set 
himself  to  enlarge  the  close  boroughs  of 
thought,  and  to  rectify  the  injustice  of 
society. 

The  war  broke  out  between  France  and 
Prussia,  and  at  the  first  the  tide  of  liberal 
sympathies  went  with  Prussia,  as  represent- 
ing opposition  to  the  Empire.  But  as  time 
went  on,  sides  changed,  and  moderates 
backed  up  Prussia,  while  the  ultra-Tories  and 
the  Ee]3ublicans  went  with  France ;  the 
one  hoping  to  see  the  Empire  restored,  the 
other  longing  for  the  establishment  of  liberty. 
And  Joshua's  sympathies  changed  with  the 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  229 

rest.  I  ought  perhaps  to  have  made  more 
than  I  have  done  of  his  intimacy  with  cer- 
tain foreign  socialists  and  reformers.  Felix 
Pyat  I  have  abeady  spoken  of.  He  was 
one  of  our  warmest  friends ;  and,  to  go  to 
a  very  materialistic  part  of  the  subject,  his 
association  with  us  both  was  of  great  value, 
not  only  for  the  sake  of  the  man  himself, 
but  also  for  the  opportunity  he  afforded  us 
of  learning  the  French  language. 

When  the  Commune  declared  itself  on  the 
eighteenth  of  March,  none  but  those  in  the 
centre  of  advanced  political  feeliug  can  tell 
wdiat  passionate  hopes  were  awakened  in  the 
men  who  care  for  liberty  and  believe  in  social 
progress.  Comtists,  Internationalists,  Secu- 
larists, Socialists,  Eepublicans,  by  what  name 
soever  the  doctrine  of  liberty  and  brother- 
hood may  be  proclaimed,  we  all  looked  over 


230  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

to  Paris  with  an  anxiety  that  was  as  painful 
as  if  we  stood  watching  the  struggles  of  a 
beloved  friend  with  our  own  hands  bound. 
There  were  men  whom  that  time  sent  mad 
with  hope  and  fear ;  and  some  that  I  could 
name  are  now  lying  cold  in  their  graves 
for  sorrow  at  the  failure  of  the  righteous 
cause.  The  Commune,  successful  in  Paris, 
meant  the  emancipation  of  the  working 
clases  here,  and  later  on  the  peaceable  estab- 
lishment of  the  Eepublic  ;  which  we  all 
believe  lias  to  come,  whether  peaceably 
established  or  not. 

On  the  nineteenth  of  March,  Joshua 
resolved  to  go  over  to  Paris,  to  help,  so  far 
as  he  could,  in  the  cause  of  humanity.  I 
never  sa  -■'  him  so  full  of  enthusiasm.  Every 
now  and  then,  especially  of  late,  his  hope,  if 
not  his  zeal,  had   slackened  a   little   before 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  231 

tlie  magnitude  of  the  task  lie  liad  undertaken 
at  home.  Alone  as  he  was,  not  only  unsup- 
ported by  any  inHuential  men  whatsoever, 
but  actively  opposed  by  many,  he  found  his 
work  of  amelioration  very  hard,  and  the 
results  unsatisfactory.  But  to  help  in  the 
establishment  of  an  organised  liberty  like  the 
Commune — that  seemed  the  best  thing  any 
man  loving  his  fellow-men  could  do;  and 
accordingly,  he  and  I  agreed  to  go  over  at 
once.  And  poor  Mary  Prinsep  was  broken 
hearted.  But,  sorry  as  he  was  to  give  her 
sorrow,  his  duty  was  too  clear  before  him  to 
let  him  hesitate ;  and,  stifling  whatever 
grief  of  private  affection  he  might  leave 
behind  him,  he  set  his  face  toward  Paris ; 
and  after  some  difficulties  and  dangers  we 
arrived  there,  "let  into  the  trap"  as  so 
many  before  and  after  us. 


232  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

As  this  is  not  a  history  of  the  Comirmne  it 
is  not  necessary  to  say  much  about  the  leaders. 
Some  he  loved  like  his  very  brothers;  others, 
chiefly  of  the  noisier  sort,  he  distrusted  as 
leaders,  and  would  rather  have  seen  subordi- 
nate to  better-balanced  minds.  He  might 
not  too,  have  always  agreed  even  with  the 
men  he  loved.  Being  men,  they  were  fallible ; 
but  they  did  honestly  for  the  best,  and  the 
abuse  hurled  at  them — a  "  nest  of  mis- 
creants," a  ''  handful  of  brigands,"  and  the 
like — was  as  untrue  as  it  was  illogical.  There 
were  among^  the  Communist  leaders  men  as 
noble  as  ever  lived  ujDon  earth  ;  men,  what- 
ever their  special  creed,  the  most  after  the 
pattern  of  Christ  in  their  faithful  en- 
deavour to  help  the  poor  and  to  raise  the 
lowly,  to  rectify  the  injustice  of  conventional 
distinctions,  and  to  give  all   men  an  equal 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  233 

chance    of     being     happy,    virtuous,     and 
human. 

Never  had  Paris  been  so  free  from  crime 
as  during;  the  administration  of  the  Commune 
— never  so  pure.  All  the  vice  which  had 
disgraced  the  city  ever  since  the  congenial 
Empire  had  existed,  was  swept  clean  out  of  it ; 
and  not  the  most  reckless  vilifie-rs  of  these 
latter-day  Christ-men  could  make  out  a  case  of 
peculation,  of  greed,  or  of  uncleanness  among 
them.  Skilled  artisans  abandoned  their 
lucrative  callings  for  the  starvation-pay  of  a 
franc  and  a  half  a  day,  and  set  themselves 
— not  to  amass  wealth,  not  to  gain  power, 
nor  to  live  in  luxury  and  pleasure — but  to 
plan  for  the  best  for  their  fellow-men,  and 
to  sketch  out  a  future  glorious  alike  for 
France  and  the  whole  world.  The  working; 
man  vindicated  then  his    claim  to   be    en- 


234  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

trusted  with  his  own  self-government ;  and 
one  of  the  brightest  pages  of  modern  history, 
in  spite  of  all  its  mistakes,  is  that  wherein 
the  artisan  government  of  '71  wrote  its  brief 
but  noble  record  on  the  heart  of  Paris. 

The  most  fatal  thing  of  that  time,  however, 
was  the  unconquerable  distrust  of  the  people. 
Long  used  to  tyranny  and  treachery  as  they 
had  been,  they  seemed  unable  to  accept  any 
man  as  a  true  patriot,  not  plotting  underhand 
for  his  own  advantage.  They  trusted  no 
one — not  even  their  sworn  and  tested 
friends.  And  we  can  scarcely  wonder  at  it. 
Twenty  years  of  Louis  Napoleon,  the  military 
command  of  Trochu,  the  history  of  the  past 
Imperial  administration  and  the  present 
Imperial  war,  had  eaten  into  their  very 
hearts,  and  taken  all  the  faith  out  of  them. 
And  the  consequence  w^as,  that  even  the  men 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  235 

now  heading  the  great  liberation  movement, 
the  best  and  most  unselfish  of  the  "  sinless 
Cains"  of  history,  were  suspected  by  the 
very  city  they  were  sacrificing  themselves  to 
save. 

But  Paris  was  mad — mad  with  despair, 
with  famine,  with  shame,  disease,  excite- 
ment. The  gaunt  frames,  the  hollow  cheeks, 
the  wild  eyes  that  met  you  at  every  turn, 
were  eloquent  witnesses  of  the  state  of  men's 
minds ;  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  mournful 
impression  it  all  made  on  me.  No  one 
looked  sane,  save  the  leaders,  and  perhaps  a 
few  of  us  more  cool-headed  Anglo-Saxons. 
The  Poles,  who  had  flocked  in  to  take  part 
in  a  cause  they  identified  with  their  own 
broken  nationality,  added  the  fever  of  their 
political  despair  to  the  fire  consuming  the 
vitals  of  the  Parisians ;  the  Italians  poured 


236  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

in  their  bitter  hatred  to  the  priests  as  oil 
on  flames — emblems  to  them  of  tyranny, 
treachery,  ignorance,  and  persecution  they 
could  not  be  brouo^ht  to  acknowledo-e  even 
the  good  that  is  in  them,  but  were  ever  their 
unrelenting  enemies ;  the  republicans  of  all 
nations  gathered  into  the  struggling  city, 
each  with  his  own  specific  and  his  own  de- 
sires ;  everywhere  was  fierce  excitement,  and 
the  conflict  of  hope  and  fear,  high  en- 
deavour and  deep  despair  ;  while  it  grew 
clearer  and  clearer,  as  the  days  passed  by, 
that  the  cause  of  the  freedom  of  Paris,  and 
with  Paris  of  Europe — the  cause  of  the 
rights  and  better  organisation  of  labour — was 
lost  for  the  hour,  and  that  hope  only  was  left 
for  the  future.  The  city  was  overmatched, 
and  liberty  was  doomed.  It  was  but  a  ques- 
tion of  time ;  the  Commune  had  to  die,  and 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  237 

it   resolved    to    die    fighting    and     unsur- 
rendered. 

Of  all  the  Communists,  Delescluze  was 
the  o]]e  Joshua  loved  most,  because  he 
esteemed  him  most ;  and  this,  not  forgetting 
his  old  loyalty  and  friendship  to  Felix  Pyat, 
nor  denying  reverence  and  love  to  many 
others.  But  there  was  something  special  in 
Delescluze.  His  heroic  spirit,  his  martyr's 
life,  his  unbroken  com^age,  his  unquenchable 
faith,  and  that  quiet  sadness  which  seemed 
like  the  sadness  of  a  prophet — all  that  he 
was,  and  had  been,  raised  one's  admiration 
more  than  any  other  man  among  them  was 
able  to  do ;  and  Joshua  was  one  of  his  chosen 
friends.  AYe  were  both  present  at  the  sitting 
where  he  vowed,  in  answer  to  a  taunt  flung 
like  a  bomb-shell  among  the  members,  not  to 
survive    the    insurrection.      The    effect   was 


238  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

electrical ;  it  was  like  a  leaf  out  of  old-world 
history,  telling  of  a  time  when  patriotism 
was  a  passion  of  which  men  were  not 
ashamed.  And  when  that  noble  old  man 
rose  so  quietly,  so  solemnly,  with  no  theatri- 
cal display  or  frothy  excitement,  but  calmly 
registered  the  vow  he  afterwards  kept  with 
such  sublime  courage,  it  was  as  a  torch  that 
lighted  every  heart  and  soul  there  with 
Pentecostal  fire.  All  knew  what  his  words 
meant ;  and  we,  who  shared  his  private 
thoughts  and  feelings  as  brothers,  knew 
perhaps  more  than  some  others.  Ah  !  the 
Society  that  needs  such  victims  as  Deles- 
cluze  to  bolster  up  its  rottenness  had  better 
crumble  to  dust  as  it  stands. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  239 


CHAPTER  XII. 


It  was  early  in  the  evening,  and  we  were 
walking  slowly  along  the  Boulevard  Mont- 
martre,  when  I  saw  a  wayworn  woman 
coming  with  staggering  steps  towards  us, 
but  at  some  distance  yet.  Her  dress  was 
torn  ;  her  pale  face  was  turned  anxiously  to 
each  passer-l3y,  scanning  every  one  with  a 
wild  scrutiny,  not  curious  so  much  as  full  of 
yearning ;  her  fair  hair  was  hanging  in 
disordered  masses  about  her  face  and  neck  ; 
but  when  I  tried  to  speak,  pointing  her  out 
to  Joshua,  something  in  my  throat  prevented 
me.     There  was  no  need  to  speak  ;  she  saw 


240  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

us  almost  as  soon  as  I  had  recoo^nised  her, 
and,  holding  out  her  hands,  as  we  came  up 
hurriedly,  said  with  a  plaintive  kind  of 
weary  smile,  "I  knew  that  I  should  light 
on  you,  Joshua  !  ^' 

Then  she  sank  in  a  heap  at  his  feet,  her 
arms  stretched  out,  and  her  fair  hair  trailed 
in  the  dust. 

Poor  loving,  faithful  Mary !  She  had 
travelled  for  the  last  days  on  foot ;  and  if 
we  men  had  suffered  on  our  journey,  she  had 
suffered  ten  times  more.  It  seems  she  had  set 
out  almost  immediately  after  us,  though  she 
had  been  more  than  three  weeks  longer  on 
the  road.  She  was  but  an  ignorant  girl,  it 
must  be  remembered  ;  she  had  not  come  yet 
to  the  point  of  knowing  that  obedience 
was  even  a  higher  quality  than  love,  and 
that  love  is  best  shown  by  obedience. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  241 

Here  she  was  however,  and  we  took  hei 
home  to  our  lodgings  in  the  Eue  Blanche ; 
and  the  concierge  laughed  significantly  when 
asked  for  a  room  where  she  might  be  lodged. 
It  would  have  been  better  to  have  refused 
her  admission  altogether,  than  to  have  laughed 
and  leered  as  he  did.  The  blood  came  into 
Joshua's  pale  face  for  just  a  moment ;  but 
there  was  no  likelihood  of  his  failing  to  do 
right  for  fear  of  its  looking  like  wrong, 
so  he  gravely  gave  Mary  his  hand,  and  led 
her  to  our  apartment.  She  was  full  of  self- 
reproach  and  contrition  when  she  saw  the 
false  position  in  which  she  had  placed  him ; 
but  he  would  not  hear  a  word.  *' If  you 
have  been  less  than  wise,  my  girl,"  he  said, 
*^  you  have  been  true  of  heart ;  so  we  will 
balance  the  one  against  the  other,  and  cry 
quits ! " 

N  B 


242  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

This  concierge  was  ar  man  who,  from 
the  first,  inspired  me  with  disgust  and  a 
vague  dread.  He  was  a  red-haired,  coarse- 
featured,  ruffianly-looking  fellow,  by  name 
Legros ;  now  in  the  time  of  the  Commune  a 
noisy  republican ;  but  one  could  fancy  him 
under  the  Empire  standing  with  his  greasy 
cap  in  hand  shouting,  ''  Vive  I'Empereur  ! '' 
with  the  loudest.  He  was  a  man  who  had 
not,  I  should  say,  one  single  guiding  principle 
of  life  save  selfishness — a  frank,  cynical,  un- 
abashed selfishness — a  selfishness  that  be- 
lieved in  nothing  save  self;  and  to  whom 
amassing  miserable  little  sums  of  money  to 
be  spent  in  sensuality,  was  the  ultimate  of 
human  cleverness  and  happiness ;  a  man 
without  faith,  honour,  justice,  or  mercy. 
I  do  not  think  I  am  too  hard  in  my  judg- 
ment  of  him  ;  for  he  was  one  of  tlie  men 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  243 

who  make  the  theory  of  the  devil  very  easy 
to  believe. 

Among  the  sentiments  professed  by 
Legros  was  that  of  disbelief  in  womanly 
virtue.  He  laughed  at  the  idea  of  purity 
as  possible  in  the  friendship  of  men  and  wo- 
men, and  of  course  had  his  own  ideas  about 
Mary  ;  which  it  seems  he  expressed  pretty 
plainly.  It  was  some  gross  insult,  I  never 
heard  precisely  what,  that  he  offered  to  the 
poor  girl  which  brought  the  whole  thing  to  a 
conclusion.  We  had  both  been  out,  leaving 
her  at  home  ;  and  when  we  came  back  we 
found  her  in  a  state  of  excitement  and  in- 
dignation at  something  that  had  happened 
during  our  absence.  She  told  Joshua,  not 
me ;  and  indeed,  the  first  I  rightly  heard  of 
it  was  when  Joshua  camo  back  from  down- 
stairs,   where  he  had  been  into  the  porter's 

R  2 


244  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

lodge,  and  had  thrashed  Legros  to  within 
an  inch  of  his  life.  This  was  the  first  and 
only  time  he  had  ever  raised  his  hand  against 
any  one ;  and  I  was  sorry  he  had  not  left 
the  job  to  me.  I  would  have  done  it  as  well, 
and  he  would  have  kept  his  hands  clean. 
Yet  for  all  this,  Avhen  Legros,  who  had  been 
wounded  by  a  chance  splinter,  was  in  the 
hospital,  Joshua  attended  to  him  specially, 
and  mainly  kept  him  alive  by  his  care. 

No  one  worked  harder  in  these  days  of 
dread  and  turmoil  than  Joshua.  This  was 
what  he  had  come  to  do.  Among  the  poor 
and  starving,  the  wounded  and  dismayed, 
there  he  was,  day  after  day,  helping  all  who 
needed  so  far  as  he  could,  tender  as  a  woman, 
faithful  and  strong  as  a  hero.  Or  he  did 
the  work  of  the  Commune,  as  he  might  be 
ordered  ;  and  they  had  no  more  trustworthy 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  245 

official.  Never  a  tliouglit  of  self  came  in  to 
weaken  or  distract  him.  For  several  nio-bts 
at  a  stretch  he  did  not  go  to  bed,  and  he 
seemed  to  have  the  strenoth  of  half-a-dozen 

o 

men,  and  to  be  kept  up  by  an  almost  super- 
natm^al  power.  For  the  famine  that  was 
wasting  the  city  was  touching  him  with  no 
tender  hand.  Day  by  day  he  got  paler  and 
thinner ;  his  eyes,  always  bright  and  as  if 
they  were  looking  at  something  farther  off 
than  we  could  see,  were  sunk  and  dark  and 
hollow ;  his  cheeks  were  drawn  and  pale,  his 
lips  blackening  and  parched.  But  he  never 
complained ;  he  never  seemed  to  think  of 
himself  at  all ;  and  if  he  had  been  without 
food  for  twelve  hours  or  twenty-four,  the 
chances  were  that  he  would  share  his  scanty 
rations  with  the  first  passer-by  who  looked 
famine- stricken.      Mary  too    was    suffering 


246  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

from  tlie  want  and  privation  of  all  kinds  with 
whicli  we  were  afflicted.  We  did  Avbat  we 
could  for  her,  be  sure.  If  my  life  could  have 
bought  hers  or  his,  I  would  have  laid  it 
down  as  willingly  as  I  would  have  given 
them  my  bitter  crust.  But  they  bore  up 
bravely,  both  of  them;  and  she  helped  too 
with  the  sick  and  wounded.  She  was  let 
to  nurse  in  the  English  ambulances,  where 
she  was  interpreted  when  necessary ;  and 
even  at  the  worst  her  face  as  she  went 
softly  about  the  beds  was  pleasant  for  the 
sick  and  dying  to  look  at.  And  here  let  me 
say  how  entirely  in  these  late  years  all  trace 
of  her  former  condition  had  passed  out  of  it. 
Purified  by  love ;  that  was  it ;  so  that  she 
looked  now  as  if  she  might  have  come  out 
of  a  convent.  This  is  no  fancy  of  my  own. 
Any  one  who  knew  Joshua,  and  consequently 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  247 

Mary  Prinsep  whom  lie  had  saved,  will 
endorse  what  I  say. 

Things  were  looking  wild  and  stormy,  and 
the  day  of  our  doom  was  coming  near.  The 
Versaillists  were  too  strong  for  us,  and  the 
hope  of  European  freedom  was  over  for  the 
time  ;  only  for  the  time !  For  ^0  sure  as 
day  follows  on  the  night,  so  surely  will  the 
law  of  human  rights  follow  on  the  tyrannies 
and  oppressions  which  have  so  long  ruled  the 
world ;  and  the  faith  for  which  the  Com- 
mune bled,  will  be  triumphant.  But  for 
the  present,  God  help  this  poor  sorrowful 
world  of  ours  ! 

The  Yicaire-General  had  gone  to  Versailles, 
but  he  had  not  returned ;  and  no  answer  had 
been  vouchsafed  to  the  offer  made,  now  I 
think  for  the  third  time,  to  release  the  Arch- 
bishop and  the  other  hostages  for  the  one 


248  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

exchange  of  Blanqui.  How  often  must  the 
story  be  told  ?  And  will  it  ever  be  acknow- 
ledged by  those  who  care  only,  right  or 
wrong,  to  fasten  the  stain  of  blood- guiltiness 
on  the  Commune,  that  the  real  murderer  of 
Monseigneur  Darboy,  and  the  rest,  was  M. 
Thiers  ?  He  knew  what  would  happen,  as  well 
as  a  man  knows  what  will  happen  if  he  puts 
a  lighted  match  to  a  barrel  of  gunpowder. 
He  knew  that  the  hostages  would  be  sacri- 
ficed. Inflamed  as  Paris  was,  surrounded  by 
an  enemy  that  treated  her  like  a  wild  beast, 
and  even  shook  hands  with  the  common  foe 
for  her  destruction,  her  best  men  spoken 
of  as  creatures  below  humanity,  her  hour 
of  humiliation  and  bloody  agony  at  hand — 
lie  knew  there  would  be  no  calm  reasoning- 
out  of  consequences,  no  quiet  acceptance  of 
the  result.     Men's  blood  was  up ;  and  the 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  249 

result  ^yas  foreseen  and  played  for.  It  was 
a  heavy  stake  to  pay  ;  but  to  discredit  the 
Commune,  and  attach  to  it  the  ineffaceable 
stain  of  blood-guiltiness,  was  worth  even  an 
Archbishop  and  some  sixty  other  lives  ! 

We  were  at  the  prison  during  the  time  of 
the  execution.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
describe  distinctly  how  it  all  took  place. 
No  one  has,  and  no  one  ever  will.  The  whole 
thing  was  confusion.  No  person  knew  ex- 
actly what  was  being  done,  or  by  whom ; 
and  no  one  had  any  recognised  authority. 
The  leaders  of  the  Commune  were  fi2fhtin2f 
singly  at  the  barricades,  and  for  the  time  all 
executive  government  was  at  an  end.  The 
tumult  and  excitement  at  the  prison  was 
beyond  all  power  of  description.  Men  went 
and  came ;  orders  were  given  and  contra- 
dicted ;    women    shrieked,    some  for    blood 


250  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

and  some  for  mercy ;  youths  shouted ;  and 
through  all,  and  above  all,  Ave  heard  the  roar 
of  the  cannon,  the  whistling  of  the  shells, 
and  saw  the  smoke  and  flame  of  Paris  rising 
up  against  the  sky. 

Joshua,  mounted  on  a  gun-barrel,  pleaded 
for  the  lives  of  the  unfortunate  men. 

"  The  work  that  the  Commune  had  pledged 
itself  to  do,"  he  said,  "  was  to  hel^D  on  the 
freedom  of  the  working  classes,  by  proving 
to  the  world  their  nobility  and  power  of 
self-government.  The  slaughter  of  unarmed 
men  would  do  none  of  this.  It  would  aive 
their  enemies  a  just  handle  against  them,  for 
it  was  a  baseness  unworthy  of  them — an  act 
neither  human  nor  noble,  neither  rio-hteous 
nor  generous.  Whatever  the  wrong  com- 
mitted by  the  Government  at  Versailles,  the 
innocent  oudit  not  to  suffer.     Let  the  Com- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  251 

mune  show  itself  supreme  in  virtue  at  this 
moment  of  trial,  and  put  the  temptation  of 
blood-guiltiness  away  from  it." 

While  he  spoke  Legros  drew  his  revolver 
from  his  belt. 

"  Death  to  the  English  traitor !  "  he  cried. 
"  Death  to  the  tool  of  the  priests !  he  be- 
lieves in  Jesus  Christ !  " 

"  Christ  !  we  want  no  Christs  here  \ 
Death  to  the  traitor ! "  shouted  one  or  two 
of  the  mob. 

Sick  with  dread  for  the  safety  of  the  man 
I  loved  best  on  earth,  I  sprang  forward  and 
covered  Joshua's  body  with  my  own  ;  when 
a  fine-looking  man — he  was  one  of  us  then, 
but,  as  he  is  now  in  office  under  Thiers,  I 
will  not  say  who  he  was — quietly  struck  the 
revolver  from  Legros's  hand. 

"Keep    your    bullets    for   your   enemies, 


252  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

fool ! — do  not  give  them  to  your  friends," 
he  said;  "this  man  is  not  a  hostage." 
Then  hurriedly,  aside,  to  Joshua,  "  Escape 
while  you  can  ;  I  will  cover  your  retreat, 
and  divert  their  attention." 

''  Oh,  that  I  had  the  voice  of  a  God  to 
teach  them  wisdom  !  "  cried  Joshua. 

"  Pshaw  mon  ami !  ^'  said  our  friend, 
contemptuously.  "  Your  best  wisdom  now 
is  to  save  your  own  life — not  to  try  and 
teach  men  anything." 

''  Out  with  you,  spies,  traitors,  priest-rid- 
den Tartuffes  ! — we  want  no  sympathizers 
with  tyranny  here  1 "  shouted  an  excited, 
half-mad  looking  man  close  to  us.  *'  Out 
with  them,  citoyens  !  " 

And  at  the  word  half-a-dozen '  men  and 
women,  shrieking  and  gesticulating,  laid 
hands  on  us  and  roughly  thrust  us  out.     I 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  253 

tliouglit  it  fortunate  we  left  with  our  lives, 
for  indeed,  the  wild,  surging  crowd  was  in 
no  mood  for  mercy  just  then  ;  and  a  couple 
of  lives,  more  or  less,  were  of  small  account 
at  that  moment.  Howbeit,  we  were  flung 
out  with  many  a  blow  and  bitter  word  ;  and 
just  as  we  were  going  through  the  gateway  a 
loud  yell  burst  forth,  a  volley  was  fired,  and 
we  knew  that  the  policy  of  Versailles  had 
triumphed. 

A  few  Parisians — not  the  Commune — had 
fallen  into  the  snare  prepared  for  them  ;  and 
the  blood  was  shed  which  was  to  cover 
Liberty  with  shame,  until  men  can  hear  and 
learn  the  truth. 

The  last  day  came.  The  guns  of  our 
forts  were  silent  ;  the  men  were  fis^htino;  in 
the  streets,  desperate,  conquered,  but  not 
craven.      The  Versaillists   were  pouring  in 


254  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

like  wolves  let- loose;  Paris  was  drenched 
with  blood,  and  in  flames.  And  then  the 
cry  of  the  jyetroleuses  went  up  like  the  fire 
that  shot  against  the  sky.  What  mattered 
it  that  it  was  a  lie  ?  It  gave  the  Party  of 
Order  another  reason,  if  they  had  wanted 
any,  to  excuse  their  lust  of  blood.  It  was 
their  saturnalia,  and  they  did  not  stint 
themselves.  The  arms,  that  had  served 
them  so  ill  against  the  Prussians,  served  them 
but  too  well  against  their  countrymen  ;  and 
the  short  hour  of  a  nation's  hope  was  at 
an  end  in  the  bloody  reprisals  of  brothers, 
that  exceeded  all  we  have  ever  heard  or 
read  of  in  a  victorious  foreign  army. 

I  had  been  separated  from  my  friends  for 
more  than  twenty-four  hours.  The  house 
where  we  had  lodged  was  in  flames ;  and 
when  I  went  to  seek  information  at  a  Com- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  255 

miinist  friend's,  De  Lancy,  I  found  a  group 
of  three  by  the  concierge  door  —  himself,  his 
young  wife,  and  a  little  daughter  not  two 
years  old,  lying  as  if  asleej),  save  for  the 
blood  that  was  their  bed.  They  had  been 
bound  together  and  shot.  Not  one,  but 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  such  cases  stand 
recorded  in  the  history  of  that  terrible 
moment,  when  the  victorious  Versaillists 
marched  into  Paris,  and  society  revenged 
itself  on  the  men  who  had  dared  to  dream 
of  redressino;  its  wrono^s  :  and  amono;  the 
terrible  sights  that  met  me,  the  evidences  of 
brutal,  wanton,  sickening  murder,  I  had  a 
shuddering  dread  that  I  should  find  Joshua 
and  Mary.  I  was  never  so  nearly  mad  as  I 
was  that  day  when  I  wandered  about  the 
bloody  streets  of  Paris,  looking  for  my 
friends ;  sorrow  for  the  lost  cause,  horror  at 


256  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

the  scenes  I  encountered,  and  fear  for  those 
I  loved,  all  combining  to  render  life  in  that 
hour  simply  torture. 

At  last  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  Mary  cross- 
ing the  street,  carrying  a  wounded  child  in 
her  arms,  and  making  for  the  ambulance.  I 
called  to  her,  and  hurried  after  her  ;  but, 
weak  as  I  was  with  excitement  and  want 
of  food,  I  could  not  make  my  voice  reach 
her. 

Just  then,  cap  in  hand  and  bowing  low, 
Jacques  Legros  rushed  out  of  a  ruined  house 
and  stopped  the  captain  of  a  troop  that 
came  marching  down  the  street.  He  pointed 
in  a  frantic  way  to  Mary. 

*^  Via,  mon  Capitaine/'  he  said,  weeping 
and  sobbing  loudly,  as  one  in  the  greatest 
distress  ;  "  c'est  la  cocotte  d'un  Communiste 
Anglais— c'est  une  petroleuse !     Elle  a  fait 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  257 

sauter  la  maison  cle  ma  m^re.  C'est  ce  que 
je  sais,  moi !  " 

''  Prends-la,"  said  the  Captain  in  an  odd, 
half  bitter,  half  matter-of-fact  way.  And 
Mary  was  seized  by  a  couple  of  his 
men,  and  brought  up  close  to  where  he 
stood. 

"  C'est  une  jolie  cible,  9a !  "  he  said  with  a 
brutal  laugh.  "  C'est  dommage — une  belle 
fille  com  me  9a  !  Mais  on  ne  doit  pas  etre 
petroleuse,  ma  fille.     Fi  done  !  '^ 

"  I  have  done  no  harm,"  said  Mary,  with 
her  wild  eyes  searching  his  in  vain  for  pity. 
"I  have  done  only  what  good  I  could  to 
all ! " 

*'  Is  setting  fire  to  honest  women's  houses 
doing  good,  wretch  \ "  said  the  Captain, 
suddenly  changing  his  mocking  manner  for 
one  of  ferocious  sternness,  and  speaking  in 


258  THE     TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

broken  Engiisli.     "  A  petroleuse  ? — you  are 
not  fit  to  live  !  " 

"  She  is  no  petroleuse,"  I  cried. 

But  as  I  spoke  a  blow  laid  me  senseless  ; 
and  when  I  came  to  myself  I  found  myself 
lying  wounded  on  the  ground,  with  Mary 
stretched  beside  me  —  shot  through  the 
heart. 

It  was  then  night  time  ;  but  soon  after  I 
recovered,  and  just  as  I  was  in  the  first 
agony  of  understanding  what  had  hap- 
pened, Joshua,  and  the .  same  man  who  had 
saved  his  life  at  the  time  of  the  murder  of 
the  hostages  in  the  prison,  came  up  to  where 
we  lay,  searching  for  us. 

I  have  no  more  to  tell  of  this  episode. 
Our  Mary  was  buried  tenderly,  lovingly  ; 
and  I  laid  part  of  my  life  in  her  grave. 
What   Joshua   felt    I  never   knew    exactly. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  259 

He  did  not  say  much  ;  and  though  once  I 
saw  him,  when  he  thought  I  was  asleep,  lay 
his  head  on  his  hands  and  weep  l3itterly,  he 
never  gave  me  a  hint  as  to  whether  he  was 
grieving  at  the  loss  of  Mary,  or  at  the 
failure  of  the  cause.  Whichever  it  was,  it 
nearly  broke  him  down  ;  and  ill  as  I  was 
myself,  with  a  bad  wound  and  a  smashed 
collar-bone,  I  saw  that  his  distress  was 
greater  than  my  own,  and  needed  more 
consideration.  I  was  desperately  afraid 
more  than  once  that  he  was  going  to  die. 
For  myself,  I  felt  as  if  I  could  not  die  while 
Joshua  lived,  perhaps  to  want  me. 

However  that  might  be,  we  neither  of  us 
came  to  grief  of  that  kind.  I  got  well  in 
time  ;  and  when  I  could  travel,  and  a  fitting 
opportunity  arrived,  our  friend,  who  had  kept 
us  all  this  time  in  safety,  got  us  sent  off  to 

s  2 


260  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

Eno-land.  And  rig-ht  o;lad  was  I  when  we 
landed  safe  in  the  Old  Country  once  more. 
Joshua  was  glad  too.  He  had  suffered 
much  from  the  confinement,  inertia,  and 
disappointment  of  the  last  few  weeks  ; — 
cominof  too,  after  a  time  of  such  intense 
hope  and  excitement ;  and  once  in  England, 
he  thouo-ht  he  could  do  something^  for  the 
Humanity  he  loved,  for  the  Truth  to  which 
he  had  consecrated  his  life. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON,  261 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


We  found  times  hard  on  our  return.  As 
for  work,  it  was  simply  impossible  to  be 
had  where  we  were  known.  If  Joshua  was 
shunned  as  a  consorter  with  bad  characters 
when  he  took  vicious  humanity  by  the  hand, 
and  sought  to  cleanse  the  foul  and  raise  the 
degraded  by  the  practical  application  of 
Christian  precepts  unsupported  by  sectarian 
organisation,  what  was  he  now,  when  be- 
smirched with  the  Communistic  doctrines  of 
liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  ?  Ordinary 
men  thinking  ordinary  thoughts  shrank  from 
him  in  moral  horror.     He  stood  before  them 


262  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

as  the  embodiment  of  miircler  and  rapine, 
the  representative  of  social  destruction  and 
the  godless  license  of  anarchy.  He  was  a 
Communist :  and  that  to  most  men  and 
women  of  the  day,  means  one  wilfully  and 
willingly  guilty  of  every  crime  under 
heaven. 

"  They  must  be  told  the  truth,  John,"  he 
said  to  me  one  day ;  "  whether  they  will 
accept  it  or  not  rests  with  themselves.  But 
the  work  has  to  be  done,  and  I  have  to  do 
it,  let  what  will  be  the  result.'^ 

"  It  will  be  a  bad  one  for  you,  Joshua,"  I 
said. 

"So  be  it,  my  son.  Preaching  the  Gospel 
brought  most  of  the  apostles  to  a  bad  end — 
as  the  world  counts  endings  ;  and  I  am 
only  following  in  their  steps.  I  have  got 
my  Gospel  to  preach  :  the  same  our  Master 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  263 

taught,  if  we  could  but  get  the  world  to 
see  it  1 '' 

But  that  was  just  what  neither  he  nor 
any  one  else  has  yet  got  the  world  to  do, 
and  I  doubt  it  will  be  long  before  they 
will. 

Work  at  the  bench  being  impossible,  being 
indeed  scarcely  the  thing  he  wanted  at  this 
moment,  Joshua  took  up  again  the  hungry 
trade  of  political  lecturer  to  working  men, 
and  went  about  the  country  explaining  the 
Communistic  doctrines,  and  showing  their 
apostolic  origin.  .  His  position  was  this.  He 
did  not  justify  all  the  actions  of  all  the  men 
at  the  head  of  affairs  durino^  the  short  reioii 
of  the  Commune  in  Paris ;  but  he  warmly 
defended  the  cardinal  points  of  their  creed, 
as  the  logical  outcome  of  Christianity  in 
politics.      The    abolition    of  priestly    supre- 


2  64  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

macy  in  a  man's  social  and  daily  life ;  tlie 
rights    of    labour   as    equal   witli    those    of 
capital ;  the  dignity  of  humanity,  including 
the  doctrine  of  human  equality ;    fraternal 
care  for  the  poor,  and  the  obligation  laid  on 
the  strong  to  help  the  ^reak  ;  the  merely  ex- 
perimental nature  of  society,  whence  follows 
the  righteousness  of  radical  changes  which 
shall  break  down  the  strongholds  of  tyranny 
and  injustice,  and  help  on  general  ameliora- 
tion ;  the  iniquity  of  maintaining  the  vested 
rights  of  wrong  ;  and  the  right  of  the  people 
to    self-government.       These  were  the  doc- 
trines he  preached  ;   but  which  he  failed  to 
induce  the  world  to   accept.      They  called 
him — as  he  called  himself — a  Communist ; 
and  the  name  offended,  so  that  they  would 
not  listen  to  any  kind  of  statement. 

*'  You  burnt  Paris,"  said  one.     "  You  mur- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  265 

dered  innocent  men,"  said  another.  '*  You 
insulted  God  and  religion,"  said  a  third.  A 
fourth — "  You  outraged  morality,  and  lived 
in  the  most  hideous  licentiousness."  "  You 
would  take  our  hard-earned  savings  from  us, 
and  reduce  all  men  to  one  level — the  idle 
with  the  industrious,  and  the  ignorant 
with  the  educated,"  said  a  fifth.  "  You 
would  rob  the  capitalist,  and  by  so  doing 
destroy  the  very  labour  you  uphold,"  said 
a  sixth. 

And  when  he  answered — "  You  mistake  ; 
I  give  up  the  blunders  of  the  Commune, 
and  the  wrong-doing  of  which  some  of  its 
members  w^ere  guilty,  only  suggesting  that 
they  did  not  do  all  that  was  said  of  them ; 
as  neither  did  the  early  Christians  slaughter 
children  for  their  Eucharist,  nor  indulge  in 
gross  sin  in  their  love  feasts,  as  the  Jews 


266  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

said  of  them ;  but  I  maintain  the  doctrine. 
Let  me  set  that  clearly  before  yon,  and  I 
will  leave  the  rest  to  time  and  God  " — as 
often  as  not  they  turned  against  him,  and 
hounded  him  out  of  their  towns. 

"  We  want  none  of  your  French  atheism 
here,"  they  said,  when  they  were  religiously 
inchned  ;  —  "  None  of  your  Ked-republi- 
canism ''  when  they  were  conservative. 

But  where  parties  were  anything  like  even 
enough  to  get  him  a  handful  of  sympathizers, 
there  was  generally  a  fight ;  and  then  the 
magistrates  ordered  him  out  of  the  place, 
with  insult  from  the  bench  ;  and  in  many 
towns  they  refused  him  permission  to  speak 
at  all.  The  very  name  of  the  Commune  is 
the  red  rag  to  English  thought ;  and  all 
reason  is  lost  when  it  is  the  question  of 
telling  the  truth  about  men  who  tried  to  get 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  267 

the    working    classes    equal   rights   and    re- 
cognition with  the  moneyed  ones. 

At  last  we  came  to  a  place  called  Low- 
bridge,  where  a  friend  of  ours  lived — a 
member  of  the  International ;  and  here 
Joshua  announced  himself  to  give  a  lecture 
on  Communism,  in  the  Town  Hall.  His  pro- 
gramme stated  the  usual  thing,  that  he, 
Joshua  Davidson,  would  show  how  Christ 
and  his  apostles  were  Communists,  and  how 
they  preached  the  same  doctrines  which  the 
Commune  of  Paris  strove  to  embody ;  allow- 
ing for  the  differences  of  method  inherent 
to  the  differences  of  social  arrangements 
that  have  grown  up  during  a  lapse  of  nearly 
two  thousand  years. 

The  evening  came,  and  Joshua  prepared 
to  go  to  the  meeting  he  had  called ;  and 
I  along  with  him.     Our  friend  had  warned 


268  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

him  to  expect  an  unfriendly  audience ;  but 
Joshua  was  not  a  man  to  be  daunted  by  a 
few  stern  faces ;  and  I  do  not  think  I  ever 
saw  him  so  possessed  with  the  spirit  of  what 
he  had  set  out  to  teach  as  he  was  this 
evening.  Yet  also  I  noticed  something  in 
him  that  was  not  exactly  like  himself. 
Grave  as  he  always  was,  to-night  he  was 
grave  to  sadness ;  a  solemn  kind  of  sadness ; 
like  a  martyr  going  to  his  death,  steadfast, 
testifying  always,  but — knowing  that  he  was 
to  die. 

He  shook  hands  with  me  at  the  side  door 
cordially  before  going  up,  saying,  "  God 
bless  you,  John,  you  have  been  a  true  friend 
to  me;"  then  smiled  at  me;  and,  the  moment 
having  come,  stepped  on  to  the  platform. 

In  the  first  row,  right  in  front  of  him, 
was  the  former  clergyman  of  Trevalga  ;  him 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  269 

we  lads  used  to  call  behind  his  back, 
"  Mr.  Grand,"  because  of  his  pomposity  and 
haughtiness.  He  had  lately  been  given  the 
rich  living  of  Lowbridge,  and  one  or  two 
stately  appointments  connected  with  the 
Cathedral  and  such  like.  I  do  not  know 
what  they  were  exactly,  but  they  had  made 
him  a  man  of  supreme  importance,  not  only 
in  Lowbridge  itself,  but  in  all  the  neighbour- 
hood round  about. 

I  saw  Joshua's  face  chancre  as  he  cauoht 
the  clergyman's  eye.  It  did  not  change  to 
cowardice,  but  to  a  kind  of  eager  look,  like 
a  man  taking  hold  of  an  enemy  ;  and  then 
it  passed  away  into  his  usual  abstracted 
unconsciousness  of  self,  as  he  came  quietly 
to  the  front  and  prepared  to  speak.  But 
at  the  first  word  there  broke  out  such  a 
tumult  as  I  had  never  heard  in  any  public 


2  70  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

meeting,  and  I  have  been  at  a  few  rough 
and  rowdy  ones  too.  The  yells,  hisses,  cat- 
calls, Avhoopings  were  indescriljable.  It 
was  impossible  to  be  heard.  I  believe  the 
roar  of  a  lion  would  have  been  overpowered. 
Joshua  stood  there  quiet  and  dignified  as 
ever,  looking  straight  in  among  them,  wait- 
ing for  the  tumult  to  cease.  It  only  ceased 
when  Mr.  Grand  rose,  and  standing  up  on 
the  chair  on  which  he  had  been  sitting, 
waved  his  hand  for  silence. 

"Friends,"  he  said,  "I  am  glad  that  by 
your  honest  English  love  of  law  and  God, 
you  have  shown  what  you  think  of  the 
poison  this  demagogue  would  have  poured 
into  your  ears.  I  know  that  man  well," 
pointing  to  Joshua ;  "  I  have  known  him 
from  a  boy ;  and  I  can  bear  my  testimony  to 
the  fact  that  he  has  been  an  ill-conditioned. 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  271 

presumptuous,  insolent  fellow  from  the  first. 
I  know  that  he  has  led  an  infamous  life  in 
London  ;  and  that  he  kejDt  such  a  disorderly 
house  the  police  were  obliged  to  interfere ; 
and  he  was  imprisoned  for  the  offence.  Loose 
women,  thieves,  iDurgiars — all  the  scum  of 
the  earth  have  been  his  chosen  companions  ; 
and,  to  crown  all,  he  went  over  to  Paris  at 
that  awful  time  of  the  Commune,  when,  if 
ever  hell  was  let  loose  on  earth  it  was  then, 
and  joined  himself  to  that  band  of  mis- 
creants who  disgraced  the  very  name  of 
humanity.  x4nd  now  he  has  the  audacity  to 
come  before  you,  honest  and  sober  men  of 
Lowbridge,  loving  your  queen  and  country, 
abiding  by  the  laws,  and  fearing  God  as  I 
hope  you  all  do.  And  what  for  ? — to  praise 
that  pandemonium  of  vice  and  crime — the 
Palis    Commune  —  and    blasphemously    to 


272  THE    TRUE    HISTORY  OF 

liken  those  fiends  in  human  shape  to  onr 
Lord  and  the  holy  apostles ;  to  incite  you  to 
a  rebellion  as  bloody  as  that ;  and  more  than 
all  this — to  pick  your  pockets  of  your 
honest  wages,  that  he,  an  idle  vagabond,  who 
won't  work,  may  wander  about  the  country, 
sowing  his  poison  everywhere,  while  living 
on  the  fat  of  the  land.  Give  him  your 
minds,  my  men  ;  and  let  him  understand  that 
Lowbridge  is  not  the  place  for  a  godless 
rascal  like  him  at  any  time — and  by  no  means 
the  place  for  an  atheist  and  a  Communist !  " 

Then  he  got  down,  and  the  men  cheered 
him  as  lustily  as  they  had  hissed  Joshua. 

I  will  do  Mr.  Grand  the  justice  to  say  that 
I  do  not  think  he  intended  his  words  should 
have  the  effect  they  did  have.  Gentlefollis 
do  not  often  incite  to  riot ;  and  a  clerg}Tnan 
does  not  like  to  be  the  wirepuller  for  a  mur- 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  273 

cler.  But,  maddened  by  their  own  miscon- 
ceptions to  begin  with,  and  excited  still 
more  by  their  parson's  abuse  and  encourage- 
ment to  violence  as  it  were,  the  audience 
lost  all  self-control.  A  dozen  men  leaped 
on  the  platform,  and  in  a  moment  I  saw 
Joshua  under  their  feet.  It  was  in  vain  then 
for  Mr.  Grand  to  cry  "  Order  " — for  the  two 
policemen  at  the  doors  to  be  sent  for — for 
me  to  lay  about  me  as  hard  as  I  was  handled. 
The  men  had  it  all  their  own  way.  They 
were  the  representatives  of  law  and  order  in 
their  own  minds,  the  champions  of  God  and 
religion,  and  they  regarded  it  as  a  sacred 
duty  to  take  it  out  of  this  godless  anarchist. 
Beaten,  kicked,  held  back  by  a  dozen  or 
more,  1  could  not  help  him.  They  beat  me 
first ;  and  then  the  police  beat  me,  and 
knocked  me  about  savagely  with  their  trun- 


274  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

cheons,  because  I  struggled  to  get  free,  and 
to  get  to  Joshua.  He  was  lying  on  the 
ground,  pale  and  senseless,  with  a  stream  of 
blood  slowly  flowing  from  his  lips  ;  while  the 
men  trampled  on  him  and  kicked  him,  and 
one,  with  a  fearful  oath,  kicked  him  twice 
on  the  head.  Suddenly  a  whisper  ran  round 
them,  and  they  all  drew  a  little  way  off; 
when,  at  a  sign  from  one  of  them,  the  gas 
was  turned  down,  and  the  place  cleared  as  if 
by  magic.  When  the  lights  were  up  again, 
and  I  went  to  lift  him — he  was  dead. 

I  know  no  more — no  more  than  this, 
that  the  man  ^^ho  had  lived  the  life  after 
Christ  more  exactly  than  any  human  being 
ever  known  to  me,  who  had  given  himself  to 
humanity  and  poured  out  his  strength 
like  water  for  the  sacred  cause,  who  had 
been   loving,  tolerant,    pitiful   to    all — that 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  275 

man  was  killed  by  the  Cliristiaii  Party 
of  Order;  his  memory  denounced  on  the 
one  hand  as  that  of  a  blood-thirsty  revo- 
lutionist who  was  justly  punished  for 
his  crimes,  on  the  other,  as  that  of  a  pre- 
sumptuous and  heretical  enthusiast  who  had 
insulted  God  and  dishonoured  the  true  faith. 
But  the  same  things  were  said  of  the  early 
Christians  as  have  been  said  of  him,  of  the 
Communists,  and  of  all  reformers  of  all 
times. 

The  world  has  ever  disowned  its  Best  when 
they  came  ;  and  every  truth  has  been  planted 
in  blood,  and  its  first  efforts  sought  to  be 
checked  by  lies.  So  let  them  rest,  our 
martyrs  whom  men  do  not  yet  know  ;  as 
neither  did  they  know  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago  the  crucified  Communist  of  Ga- 
lilee— he  who  dwelt  with   lepers,  made  his 


276  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

friends  of  sinners,  and  preached  against  all 
the  conventional  respectabilities  which  society 
then  held  in  honour. 

The  death  of  my  friend  has  left  me  not 
only  desolate,  but  uncertain.  For  I  have 
come  round  to  the  old  starting-point  again  : 
Is  the  Christian  world  all  w^rong,  or  is 
practical  Christianity  impossible  ?  I  see 
men  simply  and  sincerely  devoted  to 
the  cause  of  Humanity,  and  I  hear  the 
world's  verdict  on  them.  I  hear  others, 
earnest  for  the  dogma  of  Christianity,  rabid 
against  its  acted  doctrines.  They  do  not 
care  to  destroy  the  causes  of  misery  by 
any  change  in  social  relations  ;  they  only 
attack  the  sinners  for  whose  sin  society  is 
originally  responsible.  They  maintain  the 
unrighteous     distinctions    of     caste    as     a 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  277 

religion ;  and  they  denounce  as  delusion, 
or  impiety,  the  doctrine  of  universal  bro- 
therhood which  Christ  and  His  apostles 
preached  and  died  for.  I  hear  a  great 
deal  about  faith,  and  the  infidel  beino- 
an  accursed  thing;  but  then  I  see  the 
practical  Christian,  like  Joshua,  held  accursed 
too.  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  Let  us  have 
something  definite.  If  the  doctrines  of 
Political  Economy  are  true,  if  the  law  of 
the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  applies  absolutely  to  human 
society  as  well  as  to  plants  and  fishes,  let  us 
then  be  frank,  and  candidly  admit  that 
(■hristianity,  in  its  help  to  the  poor  and  weak 
and  in  its  patience  with  \\i^  sinner,  is  a  craze  ; 
and  let  us  aboHsh  the  pretence  of  a  faith 
which  infiuences  neither  our  political  insti- 
tutions nor   our   social  arrangements;    and 


278  THE    TRUE    HISTORY    OF 

wliicli  ouoiit  not  to  influence  them.  If 
Christ  was  right,  modern  Christianity  is 
wrong ;  but  if  sociology  is  a  scientific  truth, 
then  Jesus  of  Nazareth  preached  and 
practised  not  only  in  vain,  but  against 
unchangeable  Law. 

Like  Joshua  in  early  days,  my  heart  burns 
within  me  and  my  mind  is  unpiloted  and 
unanchored.  I  cannot,  being  a  Christian, 
accept  the  inhumanity  of  political  economy 
and  the  obliteration  of  the  individual  in 
averages  ;  yet  I  cannot  reconcile  modern 
science  with  Christ.  Everywhere  I  see 
the  sifting  of  competition,  and  nowhere 
Christian  protection  of  weakness ;  every- 
where dogma  adored,  and  nowhere  Christ 
realised.  And  again  I  ask,  "Which  is  true — 
modern  society  in  its  class  strife  and  con- 
sequent elimination  of  its  weaker  elements, 


JOSHUA    DAVIDSON.  279 

or  the  brotherhood  and  conimiuiism  taught 
by  the  Jewish  carpenter  of  Nazareth  \  Who 
will  answer  me  ? — who  will  make  the  dark 
thing  clear  \ 


THE   END, 


